Dessert « Putney Farm

Weekly Cocktail #20: The Otto’s Grotto

July 13, 2012

8 Comments
Otto’s Grotto Cocktail.

As we noted in our previous post, we recently hosted a small Hawaiian-themed dinner party for a close friend and made macadamia nut tart. The tart was great, but we wanted to be sure to have a cocktail to match, so we looked no further than Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, probably the world’s biggest expert on Tiki drinks. We happen to have his tiki drink iPhone App (so cool) and looked for a tiki cocktail that would go with dessert. We searched on the keyword “coffee” and after browsing a few results, the Otto’s Grotto almost jumped of the screen. It sounded like a perfect summer “dessert” cocktail. So we gave it a try (of course, we tested it before we served it to our friends.. ;-).

The Otto’s Grotto is a cold drink that features coffee, white rum, coffee liqueur (Kahlua, Tia Maria or home-made), Licor 43 and a dash of heavy cream. But this is not a syrupy white/black russian, but more of an ice-coffee with a kick and some depth. Coffee is clearly the main ingredient, but the rum, coffee liqueur and Licor 43 all add extra flavor. The cream adds a smooth note and mellows the bitterness of the coffee. While we served the Otto’s Grotto for dessert, you could serve this cocktail almost any time of day and get a very welcome reception. It’s good.

Float cream on top for a good presentation.

As for the ingredients, good coffee is the key here. Great coffee = great coffee cocktail, ’nuff said. As for the other ingredients, this is where you have some flexibility. And decent white rum will do, the alcohol will mainly boost the flavor of the coffee. As for the coffee liqueur, we use Kahlua (without shame), but Tia Maria will work. And coffee liqueur is one of the best DIY liqueurs you can make at home, here is a good article on the subject from Marcia Simmons at Serious Eats (they have some really good cocktail writers). Finally we have the Licor 43, a vanilla and citrus liqueur that is sometimes hard to find. We like it in the drink and it is worth having in your bar, but you could substitute Tuaca. And in a pinch, vanilla syrup and an extra dash of rum will work just fine.

Iced coffee, just better.

Building this drink is by no means difficult, but a few little steps will help. Firstly, when you mix the coffee and liqueurs, check for taste. Coffee is a highly variable ingredient, you may want to add an extra dash of coffee liqueur or Licor 43 to balance the flavors. And finally, when adding the heavy cream, it helps to drizzle it on a spoon just above the drink. This will help float the cream on top. While not a necessary step, it will look good. And if a drink tastes this good, you may as well rock the presentation. Happy Friday!

Otto’s Grotto:

(Adapted from Jeff “Beachbum” Berry)

Ingredients:
- 5 oz. iced coffee
- 3/4 oz. coffee liqueur (we use Kahlua)
- 3/4 oz. Licor 43
- 1 and 1/2 oz. white rum
- 1/4 oz. heavy cream
- Mint, for garnish (optional)
Assemble:
1. Place all the ingredients, except the cream, and ice into a cocktail shaker. Shake thoroughly and pour unstrained into a highball glass or goblet. Float cream. Garnish with a sprig of mint, if you like. Serve.
Related articles
- Weekly Cocktail #17: The Tahitian Postcard (putneyfarm.com)
- The Homemade Pantry’s Coffee Liqueur (seriouseats.com)
- Tiki Drink for Memorial Day: The Ancient Mariner (putneyfarm.com)
- 25 DIY Cocktail Projects for Stocking Up Your Home Bar (drinks.seriouseats.com)
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Posted By: putneyfarm Category: All Recipes, Dessert, Entertaining, Rum / Cachaca, Tiki Drinks Tags: Cocktails, coffee cocktails, cooking, food, kahlua, Licor 43, otto's grotto, photography, recipes, rum, tiki
Macadamia Nut Tart

July 13, 2012

10 Comments
Macadamia Nut Tart.

Since we eat mostly from our garden (and the farmers market), we tend to cook simple recipes that highlight the main ingredient. And, to us, that makes sense. If we just spent “x” days/weeks/months growing something, we want to actually see and taste it. But we do like “stretch our legs” every once in a while and engage in some real (read: labor intensive) cooking. And recently we did just that. And it was fun. And this dessert was the star.

So why make a Macadamia Nut Tart? Our friend Scott had a birthday and we had him and Sydney, his awesome wife, over for dinner. Scott is a big fan of the Hali’imaile General Store restaurant in Maui (he even gave us their cookbook, thanks!) and Carolyn and I cooked a dinner from, or at least inspired by, their recipes. We started with a light seafood salad served on nori squares and a picked ginger cocktail sauce and Thai Tuna Tartare with a small salad of shiso and mizuna. Dinner was sesame crusted Opah with coconut rice and curried cabbage (recipe soon). Cocktails started with the Tahitian Postcard, then Zombies and finished with the Otto’s Grotto (recipe soon). That was all good fun, but Scott is a self-described “dessertarian” and Carolyn found this recipe to make sure we had an over-the top-dessert to close out the evening. And a chocolate crust, ringed with macadamia nuts, then filled with macadamia filling and topped with caramelized bananas seemed to fit the bill.

Make a dough for a chocolate crust.

Macadamia nuts and sugar, hard to go wrong.

Process the nuts and sugar for the filling.

The inspiration for the dessert comes from the Hali’imaile General Store, but Carolyn’s actual recipe is an adaptation of a tart from King Arthur Flour. We like their recipes, as they tend to adapt restaurant-style baking to home kitchens. And in this case, the recipe did not disappoint. While we would never call this “simple” baking, it is less work than you might think and the steps are well-defined. If you like to bake (or have a rainy afternoon to burn) making this recipe is time well-spent. And the tart will certainly taste, and look, great.

Roll-out the dough for the crust.

Place the dough in the tart pan.

Line the crust with whole macadamias and then blind-bake the crust.

The recipe has a few discreet steps. Make a chocolate crust, blind-bake the crust, create a macadamia filling, assemble, bake and then layer on and broil (or torch) the bananas and sugar. Each step is not hard, they just need be done in sequence, and you need to take your time. The only tricky step is broiling or torching the sugar into a crust on top of the bananas- it requires close attention, but is worth the effort. This tart is not an “anytime” dessert, but it is great for special occasions.

Add the macadamia filling and bake.

Add the sliced bananas.

Broil or torch the top with sugar, cool and serve.

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Posted By: putneyfarm Category: All Recipes, Dessert, Entertaining, Fruit Tags: baking, cooking, dessert, food, lifestyle, macadamia nut tart, macadamia nut tart recipe, macadamia nuts, photography, recipes

Chocolate Cake For A Crowd

June 29, 2012

45 Comments
Big chocolate cake.

How big? It will feed over 20 people.

Now you may wonder, what do I do with a cake that big? And what does a small family do with all of these baked goods? Well, in our case the answer is little league baseball. The season just ended, but we just spent a full spring feeding 12 hungry boys. They eat a lot.

Happily, this is a real labor of love. After each game a few of the families cooked for the team, coaches and parents. As the weather got warmer and everyone got to know each other the meals morphed from take-out pizza to full 3-course spreads. By the end of the season we brought pre-made margaritas and corpse reviver #2’s to weekend games (the parents often had more fun than the kids ;-). We made pulled pork and brisket, which was a hit. But the big winner was Carolyn’s chocolate cake. This cake is “chocolatey”, moist, rich and delicious. The kids (and parents) loved it and kept asking for the cake and the bigger she made it, the more they ate. Sometimes it’s good to be 12 and eat all the cake you want. Sometimes it would be nice to be “X” and eat all the cake you want…

Grease and dust your pans with cocoa.

Mix your batter.

Bake the cakes.

Let cakes cool completely.

The recipe for the cake and frosting comes from many sources, Carolyn makes this often enough to adapt the recipe on her own. The recipe isn’t complex, but like most baking it does require that you follow some specific steps. The bonus with this recipe is that you get an extra dessert as well (more on that later). This recipe is for 20+ big servings, but you can halve the recipe, if you like.

As for the recipe itself, it is mostly standard cake making. The chocolate all comes from cocoa powder (a lot) and the moist texture from a combination of buttermilk and sour cream. And, of course, a touch of coffee that amplifies the chocolate flavor. The frosting is simply a lot of high quality chocolate, butter, sugar, milk and a pinch of salt. And as with all baking, the better the ingredients, the better the flavor.

Chocolate for frosting. Continue reading →
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Posted By: putneyfarm Category: All Recipes, Dessert, Entertaining Tags: baking, big chocolate cake, chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, cooking, food, Icing (food), photography, recipes
Simple Garden Recipes With Cherries And Berries

June 28, 2012

21 Comments
Strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar.

Baked goat cheese and lettuce salad with cherries.

When eating seasonally, the garden often dictates our menu. Right now we have cherries, strawberries and lettuces in full swing, and while we will preserve some of the fruit, we try to eat it at its peak. We also try not to do much with the main ingredient, if we grew lettuces or berries, that what we want to enjoy. So with that in mind, here are the first of a series of quick, simple recipes that highlight fresh produce straight from the garden or farmers market. This is also what we tend to have for lunch these days.

Our first recipe is a simple combination of strawberries, sour cream and brown sugar. That’s all. You just clean the strawberries and put out some sour cream and light brown sugar. Just dip the strawberry in a bit of sour cream and then the brown sugar. The flavor is sweet, sour and tangy- with just a touch of molasses from the brown sugar. Instant dessert. And pretty, too.

Simple, but very tasty.

It is worth noting that this is our second crop of strawberries this season. And we do see a pattern emerging. The first crop is tasty, but often somewhat aesthetically challenged, with misshapen fruit. The second crop comes in with more consistent shape and color- so these kind of easy preparations look very appealing at the table. We put these strawberries out and they get eaten, quickly.

Some strawberries from our second crop, these look better than the first crop.

Our other simple recipe is a baked goat cheese, lettuce and cherry salad. Baked goat cheese salads have been around for a while, but they are still a great lunch or starter salad and a lovely meat-free dish. And the same basic recipe applies to most stone fruit or berries. If you have strawberries or blackberries or even peaches, you can use this recipe. One key is to taste your goat cheese and then select the fruit that best matches the flavor. Goat cheese ranges widely from creamy to chalky and sweet to very tart. Tart cheese tastes good with sweet stone fruits, while sweeter cheese tastes best with tart strawberries or blackberries (to us, at least). But these are fun experiments, try what you like. In this case we used a creamy, but tart, local goat cheese from Harley Farms to match our very sweet cherries, and it was delicious.

Ingredients for baked goat cheese, lettuce and cherry salad.

Baking the goat cheese and breadcrumbs.

As for making the salad, it is easy, but has a few steps. Firstly cut the cheese into disks and sprinkle with fresh herbs and olive oil. Then make (or buy) some breadcrumbs and lightly coat the cheese with the breadcrumbs. Then bake in a 400 degree oven for 5-6 minutes. Meanwhile wash and dry your greens (remember the dryer the greens, the better the salad), make a quick vinaigrette and prepare your fruit. When ready to serve, dress the salad and then arrange greens, a disk or two of the cheese and some fruit on a salad plate. Simple, tasty and beautiful. There’s a reason you see this dish at restaurants, it works.

Make a quick, flavorful vinaigrette.

Arrange on the plate, season and serve.

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Posted By: putneyfarm Category: All Recipes, Dessert, Fruit, Garden and Orchard, Lunch / Salads / Sides Tags: baked goat cheese lettuce cherry salad, cherry dessert, food, goat cheese salad, photography, recipes, salad, strawberry, strawberry dessert, strawberry sour cream brown sugar, vegetarian

Cherry Clafoutis

June 26, 2012

45 Comments
Cherry clafoutis.

Nothing makes us happier than growing, cooking, eating and sharing our own food. But there is a slight tyranny to the seasons. If you have cherries, you are cooking with cherries, period. And our Bing cherries are at their peak, so we picked them all. One small tree gave us four large bowls of cherries…all at once. Happily, cherries lend themselves to all sorts of dishes and cocktails (and we do seem to like eating and drinking). So this week you may see cherries in all sorts of dishes. But for now, let’s start with a classic cherry dessert, clafoutis.

Fresh Bing cherries form our orchard.

Clafoutis is a French dessert that combines cherries baked in a light batter, often with some added almond flavor. Think of the batter as “flan-meets-pancake” and you can get an idea of the light, yet rich, texture that rightfully lets the cherries star in the dish. Originally clafoutis featured sour or black cherries with the pits still in. Supposedly the pits add extra almond-like flavor, but as we have Bing cherries and like our teeth, we put pitted Bing cherries and almond extract in our clafoutis. You can also use this basic recipe with other stone fruits or berries, but if you want to be technical it would then be a flaugnarde, but feel free to call it a clafoutis- we won’t tell anyone.

A cherry-pitter is a useful tool if you like cherries as much as we do.

As for the recipe, clafoutis is a classic dish and there are many recipes out there. We chose to adapt an Alice Waters recipe that adds a few extra steps, but also adds extra flavor. In this case we season and pre-bake the cherries before we add them to the clafoutis. The extra cooking improves the flavor and texture of the cherries, but also leaves behind the base of a syrup you can reduce and drizzle on top of the clafoutis at service. Good stuff. We also prefer to cook clafoutis (and many desserts) in individual ramekins, we think it looks good and makes leftovers easier to handle, but a large baking dish works for this recipe as well.

Season the cherries for pre-baking.

Extra cooking for more flavor and better texture- plus you get cherry juice for a sauce.

Place a layer of cherries in the ramekins or baking dish.

Assembling the clafoutis is a pretty easy affair. Pre-cook the cherries, save the syrup, butter your baking dish(es), place the fruit in the dishes, make and add the batter and bake. The batter is the only part of the recipe that requires some extra effort, you need to whip egg whites and then fold them into the batter for the right texture. The clafoutis bakes for about 20 minutes at 375 degrees. While the clafoutis bakes, reduce your cherry syrup for a tasty and pretty sauce. When the clafoutis is done, add the sauce, dust with powdered sugar and serve.

Make the batter.

Pour batter over the cherries.

Bake until browned and puffed. Continue reading →
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Posted By: putneyfarm Category: All Recipes, Breakfast, Dessert, Fruit, Garden and Orchard Tags: bing cherries, cherries, cherry, cherry clafoutis, cherry clafoutis recipe, cherry recipes, Clafouti, cooking, dessert, food, photography, recipes
Chocolate Breakfast Muffins

June 18, 2012

15 Comments
Chocolate breakfast muffins with fresh cherries and blueberries.

When is a cupcake not a cupcake? When you call it a muffin. And if you want to push things a bit more, you call it a breakfast muffin. Excellent. But whatever you call it, this is one fine muffin. Moist, chocolatey and filled with chocolate chips, these are hard to resist. And since we have been known to enjoy hot chocolate and chocolate croissants for breakfast at times (and perhaps even a slice of chocolate cake..;-), we don’t see any reason why we can’t have a chocolate ~~cupcake~~ muffin for breakfast every once in a while.

These take less than 20 minutes to bake, but it is hard to wait.

And just to tempt you a little more, these are very easy to make. Mix dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients, then combine them with some melted butter (of course). You don’t even need to beat the batter, just make sure it combines and then pour the batter into muffin cups and bake for 15-20 minutes. Serve with fruit and, perhaps, more butter. A very happy breakfast, in less than 45 minutes.

Mix the dry ingredients.

Mix the wet ingredients.

Combine into a nice batter and bake. Easy.

And if you want to feel a little better about the recipe you can substitute white whole-wheat flour and fruit like dried cherries for the chocolate chips. We tried it, and it works just fine. So you can eat a chocolate muffin with some ostensible health benefits (or at least some guilt remediation). But since chocolate makes you feel like you’re in love, we think that is benefit enough.

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Posted By: putneyfarm Category: All Recipes, Breakfast, Dessert Tags: breakfast muffins, chocolate breakfast muffin, chocolate chip muffin, chocolate cupcake, chocolate muffin, cooking, food, photography, recipes