Malted Crisp Tart with Peanut Butter Maltballs

Dudes, this right here is last-meal type material. It's sort of involved—several bowls and pans and such—but it's this kind of methodical, delicious madness that makes the last day on earth worth living, right? Right! Say it with me: PEANUT BUTTER MALTBALLS. We're spending our end time wrapping presents and plotting Christmas brunch, but that's because we already survived our apocalyptic gauntlet when my aggressively jet-lagged family collided into a small rental house in DC last night. There were eyerolls, barks, threats, and meatloaf, but I sustained my sanity on memories of a just-finished road trip and this tart, enjoyed a few days prior in North Carolina with Joey's equally vibrant yet much more polite family. And that trip to North Carolina, along with our visits to Brooklyn, Philadelphia, DC, Richmond, and all the attendant pie shops, is really worth a few words, but my family is in town and we've got nerves to step on and cards to play. If you're hunkered down somewhere with your family, do yourselves the service of making this tart; it's involved and incredible and definitely worth it. Happy end times!

Malted Crisp Tart
Adapted from Baked Explorations, one of my very favorites 
Everyone online raved about this malted brown sugar crust, but it did not turn out for me which is totally my fault. I made the crust by hand and almost certainly overworked the butter, so it pooled in a sticky mess in my tart pan; I ended up using an easy press-in shortbread crust at the last minute since this tart was on a timeline! You’ll likely have no problem, but in the event that you do, this quick shortbread crust does the trick.  

For the crust
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt salt
1 tablespoon malted milk powder (Carnation brand is pretty easy to find at major grocery outlets)
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into half-inch pieces
1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 

For the caramelized crispies
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 cups crispy rice cereal

For the ganache
8 ounces good-quality milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons malted milk powder

For the malted pastry cream
1 1/4 cup whole milk
1/3 cup granulated sugar
One large egg yolk
One large egg
1 tablespoon + 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons malted milk powder
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 ounces heavy cream 
In addition: 1 cup crushed malt balls, along with any number of malt balls for decorating the top. I used peanut butter malt balls!

1. Make the crust: spray or butter a 9-inch tart pan. Pulse all of the crust ingredients in your food processor until you get a crumbly mixture, then press the crumbs into your tart pan; use a metal dry measure cup to press the bottom and sides to ensure even thickness. Put the tart crust into the freezer for at least 20 minutes. Or, wrap the unbaked crust and keep it in the freeze for up to a few days if you’re looking to make this ahead.

2.  Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remove tart pan from the freezer, put it on a baking sheet, and bake it in the oven until golden brown, between 20 and 30 minutes. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

3. Make the caramelized crispies: line a cookie sheet with a Silpat or aluminum foil sprayed with vegetable oil. In a small saucepan, add the water and sugar, and bring to a boil over low heat; allow to boil for one minute. Add the rice cereal and stir with a rubber spatula until cereal is dry. Continue to cook, stirring all the while, until wisps of smoke rise and sugar turns deep amber. Stir to ensure that all the crispies are evenly coated, then dump out onto lined cookie sheet; break up the pieces so they don’t clump. This process will take about 30 minutes.

4. Make the ganache: place chopped chocolate in a medium bowl. In a small saucepan, whisk the cream and malt powder then bring to a simmer over low heat. Pour the warm cream over the chocolate, allow to stand for two minutes, then whisk until smooth.

5.  Pour the ganache into your cooled tart shell, and press 1.5 cups of caramelized crispies and the crushed malt balls into the ganache. Pop into the fridge to cool and set while you make the malted cream.

6.  Make the malted diplomat cream: place a fine-mesh sieve over a medium bowl. In
a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, egg, egg yolk, cornstarch, and the malted milk powder until it becomes pale yellow, about one minute. Then, in a medium saucepan, bring the milk to a simmer over medium heat. Whisk half the warm milk into the egg mixture, then pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan. Whisk the saucepan constantly until the mixture thickens--it will seem like a thin pudding--about five minutes. Take the cream off the heat nd whisk in the butter and vanilla. Pour the pastry cream through the sieve to remove any milk solids. Stick a piece of plastic wrap right on top of the pastry cream, and chill for at least an hour.

7.  Finish assembly: whisk the heavy cream in a small bowl until soft peaks form. Whisk the pastry cream to lighten it, then fold in the whipped cream. Top the tart with with diplomat cream, and let set in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving. When ready, garnish with leftover malt balls and caramelized crispies. Tart will keep for about three days in the fridge, covered, but is best on days one and two.

Make ahead: The crust, crispies, and diplomat cream can all be made ahead of time and put together a few hours before serving. Just remember that it’s best if the crust and ganache are given ample time to cool before you add the pastry cream.

Apple Cranberry Pie

It’s the morning of my departure from the farm, and I’m not convinced that I can think clearly enough to string together two thoughts about this delicious pie. Leaving has left me utterly verklempt. Joey and I have planned a sweet two-week road trip down to North Carolina and back up to DC for Christmas, but for the first time in a long time, I’m more focused on what I’m leaving behind than on what’s ahead; needless to say, working as a cheesemaker in Maine has been an experience that has me all sorts of choked up about what’s next.

While falling asleep in a cloud of wine fumes last night, I thought about a few of the standout moments from my “semester at sea.” There was that very first affirming market, seaside at Winter Harbor; an incredible cookout at Clover Crest farm and the attendant fables of a calf cannon for disposing of dead baby cows; that night of bootleg vodka and verbal perversions in Brewer; my first contra dance!; an abundance of but still never enough lake time; the sickening and bloody task of disbudding a few baby goats of their horns; that party at a radical collective farm down south that found me and Emily sleeping in the back of her truck; a few stoned and raucous nights around the table talking about salt and poking holes in each others' cultural theories; breeding the goats! petting the baby goats all the time! running with the goats!; I even loved mucking the barn. This has been a time of unprecedented mental and emotional challenge for me, and I’m sincerely grateful for all of it, particularly the parts that super sucked.

Another standout moment would of course be Thanksgiving, at which this pie won hearts and stomachs. Dave, a former chef who would rather retire to bed with a PB&J than eat something even remotely subpar, is fond of telling me that things I bake are “fine”; it’s his concise way of excusing himself for a sandwich. He who did not especially like my waffles, doughnuts, raspberry cake, latkes, goat cheese cheesecake, or banana bread--and you surely know where I’m headed here--fell head over heels with this pie. And so did I! The recipe is a spin on Yossy’s apple, quince, cranberry pie, and her combination of allspice, orange, and vanilla is just perfect. This was also my first cranberry-baking experience, and I ain’t lookin’ back. I will forever hold it against Dave for not taking me canoeing to pick cranberries from the riverbank, which is apparently a thing that they do here and just forgot to tell me about--curses! At least it’s something to look forward to and demand upon any future fall visits.

Meanwhile, it’ll probably be a bit silent here while I’m on the road, but there’s an exciting interview coming up soon and lots of holiday-spirited deliciousness in the archives. Just have a look around! And thanks, as always, for following along.
 

 Apple Cranberry Pie

Adapted from Apt. 2B Baking Co.’s Apple, Quince, Cranberry Pie

For the Crust
From Apt. 2B Baking Co. and I Made That!

Makes two, or enough for one lidded pie. Feel free to substitute in your favorite recipe.

12 ounces pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
8 ounces (two sticks) very cold butter
4 to 6 ounces ice water
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1.  On a clean counter, dump your flour and salt; mix it around with a bench scraper. Chop one stick of butter into quarters, and cut it into the four with your bench scraper. When butter is about the size of lima beans, cut in the second stick, pulling, folding, and tossing with the bench scraper as you go, until the butter is about the size of quarters. Add the vinegar to the ice water.

2.  Using your fingers, flick the water onto the butter-flour mixture, gently folding with the bench scraper all the while. You have added enough water once the mixture holds together when squeezed; it should be very shaggy.

3.  Next, push the butter into the flour. Using the heel of your palm, push a small section of the dough down and away from you; this creates long layers of butter in your dough, which translates to long flaky layers in your crust. Use your bench scraper to scrape up the smear, and put it a bowl. Repeat until all the dough has been smeared and you have a bowlful of long, buttery layers. Push these into one mass, divide in half, wrap each in plastic, flatten into disks, and chill at least two hours, or better yet overnight.

For the Filling
5 or 6 large tart apples, about 3 pounds (I used Northern Spy and Empire)
1 cup fresh cranberries
zest and juice of one small lemon
zest and juice of half of an orange
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon sea salt salt
2 tablespoons butter (salted is my preference), cut into little cubes
1 egg yolk whisked with a touch of water, for topping
Large-grain sugar, for topping

1.  Prepare dough: Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. On a lightly floured surface, roll out one half of your pie dough into a 12-inch circle. Gently fit it into a nine-inch pie plate, and place it in the fridge to chill. Roll out top dough into a 12- to 13-inch circle and, if planning to do a lattice-top pie, cut dough into eight to ten strips that are about one inch wide (I prefer the thick strips!). Place in the fridge to chill; it’s easiest for me to slide the strips on the back of a cookie sheet and into the fridge.

2.  Prepare filling: Peel and core the the apples, then cut them into half-inch slices (I kept my slices long, but you can cut them into chunks too if you prefer). Put the apples and cranberries into a large bowl, then gently toss with lemon and orange juices and zests. Add the sugar, vanilla bean pulp, flour, allspice, and salt, and stir to gently to combine.

3.  Assemble: Pour filling into the prepared pie shell, and dot with the bits of butter. Weave your lattice across the top (this is a great tutorial), or top with a full crust if you’d rather. Trim the overhanging crust pieces to about one inch, tuck under, and crimp. Cut some vents into the top if you’re carrying on with a full crust, brush with the egg yolk mixture, and sprinkle with a tablespoon or two of large-grain sugar.

4.  Slide pie onto a cookie sheet, and bake for 15 minutes on the lowest rack of your oven. Lower the temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for another 40 to 50 minutes, until the crust is deep golden brown and filling is bubbling up around the edges. Remove from oven and let pie cool for an hour or two before serving up with a dollop of vanilla whipped cream.

Chocolate Caramel Sea Salt Tartlets

Guns! Brandy! Pie! Thanksgiving this year totally exceeded my expectations and got progressively more delicious and fun with each hour of the day. No one got punched, I didn’t kill any birds, the food was some of the best Thanksgiving fare I’ve ever had, and the desserts were off the wall. Sandwiched between it all was some chill time in front of the boob-tube and a bewitching soundtrack of lady crooners, amplified by mine and Emily’s homebrew, spiked cider, and endless mugs of coffee brandy. 

After a morning marathon of besotted cooking and an utterly indulgent brunch, we soldiered on to prepare the main Thanksgiving feast. Or rather, Jen and Dave soldiered on, while I diddled away with the desserts and cajoled Jen’s sous chefs into shooting cat-food targets with me out back. Then, with twenty entrees and two football games under our belts, we finally collapsed around the dinner table to gobble up twelve hours of work and toast to our hard-won, most excellent farming season.
  
I always worry that my desserts will be a letdown, and sometimes they are (last year’s cranberry frangipane tart, for instance). But this year, mercifully, all three desserts totally ruled. Not everyone had the stomach for pie at the end of the night, but Dave, Daniel, and I somehow managed to slowly shovel down sampler plates of the sweet potato buttermilk pie, apple cranberry pie, and these chocolate caramel sea salt tartlets. With whipped cream, no less! It was a heroic end to a delirious day from which I am still recovering. It hasn't stopped me from scarfing down the leftovers though, and it shouldn’t stop you from planning some holiday baking. Start with these! They were delicious insanity, especially with a bit of ground coffee sprinkled on top, and they would definitely be a welcome addition to any upcoming holiday tables you might be setting.
Hope you enjoyed a beautiful Thanksgiving!

Chocolate Caramel Tartlets
Recipe adapted from Claudia Fleming's The Last Course
 
Fleming uses a chocolate tart dough in her recipe. I substituted my favorite sweet tart dough because chocolate tart doughs (that aren't made with crushed cookies, that is) always seem a bit "blah" to me. Her original also calls for mini muffin tins or two-inch tart pans to make 24 mini tarts, but alas we don't have any. Were I to make this again--and I will!--I'd do it with a full-size ten-inch pan anyway.

For Tart Dough
9 tablespoons very cold butter (I prefer salted)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 large egg

Caramel Filling
1/2 cup water
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup (you can use Lyle’s Golden Syrup if you’d rather!)
1/2 cup (one stick) salted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons creme fraiche

Chocolate Ganache
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
Large-grain sea salt, for garnish
Coarsely crushed coffee beans, for garnish (optional)

1.  Make tart dough: Cube butter into one-inch pieces and chill in freezer while you ready everything else. In the bowl of a food processor, mix flour, sugar, and salt. Sprinkle butter over top, and pulse about 10 to 15 times until butter is between the size of peas and oatmeal. Use a fork to break up egg in a small bowl, and pour a bit at a time through the feed tube, pulsing once after each addition. When the egg is all in, pulse the dough for ten seconds at a time until it comes together. Right before you get to this point, the mixer will change sounds and essentially start grumbling at you. Dump dough onto sheet of plastic wrap, lightly push together, and chill for at least one hour, preferably longer.

2.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees. For four-inch tartlets, divide dough into six equal pieces. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough hunks one by one to six-inch circles and fit them into tart pans, pressing along the bottom and up to sides to ensure an even fit. Roll your rolling pin across the top to cut the dough and make smooth edges. Prick the bottoms all over with the tines of a fork and firm up in freezer for 30 minutes. Butter the shiny side of six pieces of aluminum foil, press into bottom and up sides of tart dough, then bake tartlets for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake until golden, about ten minutes more. Tart can also be made in a ten-inch tart pan.

3.  Prepare filling: Place water, sugar, and corn syrup in a large saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, swirling the pan occasionally, until you have a dark amber caramel, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from heat and immediately and carefully (!!!) whisk in the butter, cream, and creme fraiche. Continue whisking until mixture is smooth. Divide the caramel among tart pans while still warm, filling them almost to the top. Let cool until caramel is set, about 45 minutes. You can also make the caramel up to five days ahead of time and refrigerate it; just reheat it until pourable.

4.  Make ganache: In a saucepan, bring the cream to a boil over medium heat. Meanwhile, place your chopped chocolate in a bowl. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let sit for two minutes, then whisk vigorously until smooth. Immediately pour chocolate over the tarts. Allow to set for about two hours, then top with big grains of salt and coarsely ground coffee when ready to serve. Our tarts kept covered at room temperature for four days.

Thanksgiving Ins-pie-ration!

I don’t know about you guys, but my Thanksgiving menu is definitely not planned yet. In a way, this year feels like my first Thanksgiving away from home since Kickasserole in DC is not happening, and I’m missing Orphans Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh (my very favorite occasion to get mercilessly drunk, punched in the face, and ass-kicked at ping-pong). It’s shaping up to be a good holiday though, and I’ve been promised a morning of hunting (!), coffee with brandy, venison, homemade eggnog, and a spread that lasts all day long before we collapse in front of a few football games. Not the stuff of my own traditions, but I’m so grateful and excited to be included in someone else’s celebration.

Pictured: labneh tart; brown butter date tart; red potato, dijon, kale tart; caramelized garlic and goat cheeses tart 

And of course, there will be pie. Lots of pie. There aren’t any pumpkin pie fanatics in this house, which means that a list of excellent, fun pies is in the works: triple creme brie tart with red wine fig compote, goat cheese cranberry cheesecake, ooey gooey chocolate caramel tart, sweet potato buttermilk pie, and maybe a chocolate-drizzled salty caramel nut tart. Dave is threatening to teach me how to make chocolate cheesecake, and of course maple syrup abounds, so we might rustle up a maple creme pie of sorts too.

Pictured: chocolate ganache meringue tart; maple buttermilk pie; goat cheese and salted caramel cheesecake; salty honey pie

If you, like me, are an artful procrastinator and have yet to nail down your menu, have a look around the ol’ archives to see if there’s anything that fits your table. There’s cheesy, savory, chocolatey, salty sweet, super sweet, and an effort to hit everything in between. If pie isn’t your thing, check out the salted caramel pumpkin roll with brandied whipped cream, the walnut and cream cheese cookie sandwiches, or, if you’re out west, these pumpkin bourbon ice cream sandwiches. There’s a supremely delicious applesauce Bundt cake with caramel glaze and some simple jammy date and fig cookies that could fit the bill. And wherever you’re celebrating this year, I wish you a magical Thanksgiving and the most bountiful, scrumptious of spreads!

Caramelized Carrot Cake with Milk Jam Sour Cream

You guys, this is important: it is fried cake. To be specific, it is carrot cake that has been cut into bars, rolled in sugar, and skillet-fried until caramelized. I ain’t looking back. Especially not since the whole she-bang is topped with milk jam, which is basically just a sort of gross name for the most delicious combination of homemade sweetened condensed milk plus a spoonful of sour cream. This cake was amazing, but it’s the method that’s the take-home. Why have I not fried cake before?!

The cake-caramelizing technique comes to us courtesy of Oxheart from last month’s issue of Bon Appetit, and was brought to life by Tim Mazurek over on Lottie + Doof. It was, in fact, his tweeted suggestion of pan-frying carrot cake in particular that brings us here today. I find it totally okay to reaffirm his kitchen genius by telling you that I first tried this with gingerbread and it just wasn’t as good as the carrot, though I may yet try again. Old-fashioned white cake is one of my favorites of all time, and I'm sure that it would be out of this world rolled and fried and maybe topped with some chocolate bourbon sauce: endless delicious possibilities!

Can we also just take some personal time to love this song? It is so good, and I hope that you enjoy it too. The perfect cake-eating soundtrack, right? Right.

Caramelized Carrot Cake with Milk Jam Sour Cream
Inspired by Bon Appetit and Lottie + Doof

Carrot Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
 
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
2 heaping teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 heaping teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups canola oil
4 large eggs (I used duck eggs! It worked.)
3 cups grated, peeled carrots
Granulated sugar for frying

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottom of a 13”x9”x2” pan, line it with waxed paper or parchment, and butter and flour that in turn.

2.  Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger in medium bowl. Whisk sugar and oil in large bowl until well blended. Whisk in eggs one at a time. Add flour mixture and stir until blended. Stir in carrots. Pour batter into cake pan and smooth the top. Bake for 30 to minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

3.  Let cool in pans for five minutes or so, then transfer cakes to a cooling rack. Let cool completely, then wrap in two layers of plastic wrap and pop it into the freezer for at least two. Wrap in a third layer of plastic if planning to keep cake in freezer for more than a week or two.

4. When ready to fry, take cake out of freezer, remove plastic, and use a serrated knife trim cake so that it has clean edges. Cut cake in half lengthwise, then cut each half into bars that are about 1.25 inches wide.

5.  Heat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat for a few minutes (I found that my pan had to be pretty hot to achieve the caramelizing that I was looking for). Meanwhile, spread some sugar onto a plate, and roll the four long sides of each bar in the sugar. Working in batches, caramelize the cake in skillet, turning with tongs about every 30 seconds to one minute to brown evenly. Serve warm, with milk jam sour cream, salted caramel, whipped cream, or any sort of decadent topping of your choosing.

Milk Jam Sour Cream
Adapted from Oxheart, via Bon Appetit  
2 cups whole milk
1 cup granulated sugar
About 1 tablespoon sour cream per serving

1.  Mix milk and sugar into a large heavy-bottomed saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium heat; stir until sugar is dissolved. Turn heat to low and simmer for about an hour (the recipe suggests 40 minutes, but mine took slightly longer than one hour), until mixture is thickened and reduced to about one cup. Remove from heat, and cool to thicken.

2. When ready to serve, mix one tablespoon of sour cream with about one tablespoon of milk jam, or to whatever your desired sweetness. Top cake! Extra milk jam can be used to sweeten tea, or as a totally decadent topping to waffles, cobbler, or some such thing.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds Salty Honey Pie

My mid-Atlantic pals are all hunkered down awaiting Sandy’s onslaught, battening the hatches, roasting whole turkeys, and guzzling liquor in equal measure. Some of them are camped out on the first floors of their houses, and most of them are apparently wearing short shorts, watching SVU, and playing Scrabble. I’m not envious, but I would a little bit love to be home stuffing my face and playing Celebrity with all my buds; I miss you, dudes, and wish you much safety! Up in our neck of the woods, preparations have included anchoring the barn, sheltering the baby goats from the wind, and burning the shit out of our emergency ration of molasses gingerbread (dang it)--our straits are none too dire. If the power goes out here, the Victrola will go on marathon-play, and we’ll battle out Trivial Pursuit in front of the wood-fired stove. All in all a homey prospect that Dave likens to “summer camp.”

This salty honey pie from last week’s snatch of Sunday free time has little to do with the storm, though it could make a tasty hurricane snack if you’ve got the power and time. It hails from Four & Twenty Blackbirds, a pie shop in Brooklyn that I’ve long been meaning to check out (and finally will in December!). My ol’ Tartner in crime, Emily H. of Nothing-in-the-House, whipped this up in tart form a few times back in February, but it somehow eluded my fork until last week. Daniel, our latest WWOOFer, is a certifiable honey addict who eats the stuff by the heaping spoonful; I’ve never seen a person be so into honey. Couple that with Scott, a salt hobbyist with a preference for the fancy stuff, and this place houses the perfect audience (and ingredients) for this salty-sweet goodness. I was expecting a seriously gooey filling, but it bakes up like a crunchier custard with a deep honey flavor. The only thing we were missing was whipped cream!

Mood lighting.

If you’re interested in reading more about the sisters behind this recipe and the pie shop, give a gander to this interview that Emily did with them, and then go make the pie. Stay safe, y'all. The goats and I are thinking of you.

Salty Honey Pie

Adapted from Melissa and Emily Elsen, via Nothing-in-the-House

The original recipe calls for prebaking the crust, but we were all out of foil and parchment paper at the time, so I skipped that step as did Emily. It worked out great!

For Filling

1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) butter, melted

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons cornmeal

1/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

3/4 cup good-quality honey

2 teaspoon white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla paste (I used 1 teaspoon vanilla extract instead)

3 eggs, whisked to blend

1/2 cup cream

1 to 2 tablespoons flaky sea salt for finishing (pink Himalayan!)

1.  Roll out pie dough (recipe below!) to a 12-inch circle and line a nine-inch pie plate with it. Roll edges under, crimp as you please, and toss it in the freezer while you ready the filling.

2.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter with the sugar, salt, and cornmeal to make a thick paste. Add the honey, vinegar, and vanilla. Whisk in the eggs, then add the cream and blend.

3.  Pour the filling into the frozen pie shell and bake at 350 degrees F for 45 to 60 minutes; rotate pie halfway through baking. The filling will puff up, and it should be wobbly in the middle and firm around the edges. Cool pie for at least an hour (I’d actually recommend longer; this pie was best at room temperature), and finish with a layer of sea salt; I found that one tablespoon was about right. Slice and serve with freshly whipped cream!

Pie Dough

By way of Apt. 2B Baking Co. and Brandi Henderson

Makes enough for two, but you’ll only need one for this recipe. Feel free to substitute in your favorite crust recipe instead!

12 ounces pastry flour

1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

8 ounces (two sticks) very cold butter

4 to 6 ounces ice water

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1.  On a clean counter, dump your flour and salt; mix it around with a bench scraper. Chop one stick of butter into quarters, and cut it into the four with your bench scraper. When butter is about the size of lima beans, cut in the second stick, pulling, folding, and tossing with the bench scraper as you go, until the butter is about the size of quarters. Add the vinegar to the ice water.

2. Using your fingers, flick the water onto the butter-flour mixture, gently folding with the bench scraper all the while. You have added enough water once the mixture holds together when squeezed; it should be very shaggy.

3. Next, push the butter into the flour. Using the heel of your palm, push a small section of the dough down and away from you; this creates long layers of butter in your dough, which translates to long flaky layers in your crust. Use your bench scraper to scrape up the smear, and put it a bowl. Repeat until all the dough has been smeared and you have a bowlful of long, buttery layers. Push these into one mass, divide in half, wrap each in plastic, flatten into disks, and chill at least two hours, or better yet overnight.

Pumpkin Roll with Brandy Whipped Cream and Salted Caramel

As of a week ago, my parents have been married for four decades. They went to the same Ventura high school, but weren’t attached in those days; they got together for the first time ten years later, after their high school reunion when my mom called up my dad about getting a cup of coffee on her layover in San Francisco. In my sweet momma’s yearbook though, my student body president, jock of a pops wrote something to the tune of, “Dear Gail, your senior portrait turned out great. I’ve always thought you had a beautiful smile.” Cuuuuttttteeeee. Wham, bam, forty years later, and my nice-as-pie folks found themselves on our farm Maine celebrating their anniversary with me, one-half the consequence of their union. Joked my dad about the milestone, “Well, it’s just that divorce is too much trouble,” upon which he leaned in and allowed me take the cutest photo in the history of photos.

After their day on the farm, which included brunch and observing “bucks licking their carrots” (direct mom-quote), my folks traveled back south to their cabin where I joined them the next day. Pops took out an ad in the local paper commemorating their anniversary, and after that, the occasion went largely unobserved. We all cuddled up to the fire to read and watch movies, but considered disowning one another upon a particularly irksome game of Chinese checkers; “This is what forty years of marriage gets you,” was shot back and forth both lovingly and sarcastically throughout the days.

This pumpkin cake wasn’t for their anniversary per se, but because they hardly ever bake and my mom is equal parts into whipped cream and liquor while my dad loves pumpkin, the weekend was a good opportunity to capitalize on having more than one dessert-hungry mouth. My mom “assisted” by surreptitiously “taste-testing” whipped cream while my dad critiqued my photo lighting, but the trouble paid off once we sat down to scarf half the cake with coffee and Baileys on the side (so much liquor, this family!). This is a super dessert. The pumpkin comes through just enough--I’m not all that into extremely pumpkin-tasting things--while the brandy and caramel hold it all down. The cake is very delicate and airy so it’s best eaten on day one or two, but I brought the leftovers back to the farm where they lasted just fine until day three.

Pumpkin Roll Cake

Adapted significantly from Epicurious

Pumpkin Cake

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
6 large eggs, separated
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup golden brown sugar, packed
2/3 cup pumpkin puree, canned or roasted is fine
1/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

Salted Caramel
1 cup sugar
6 tablespoons salted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 cup heavy cream

Brandy Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons brandy (or Cointreau or bourbon, etc.)

1.  Make pumpkin cake:  preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 15x10x1-inch jellyroll sheet. Sift flour, cinnamon, ginger and allspice into small bowl. Using handheld mixer, beat egg yolks, 1/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup brown sugar in large bowl until very thick, about three minutes. On low speed, beat in pumpkin, then dry ingredients. Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites and salt in another large bowl until stiff but not dry. Fold egg whites into batter in three additions. Transfer to prepared pan. Bake cake until tester is inserted comes out clean, about 15 minutes.

2.  Cut around pan sides to loosen cake. Place damp paper towels or kitchen towel (not terry cloth) over top of cake and let stand for ten minutes; gently remove, and don’t worry when bits of cake stick to the towel. Dust top of cake with powdered sugar, and cover with a dry kitchen towel that’s longer and wider than the cake. Flip out onto counter on top the towel, and dust again with powdered sugar. Using towel to help you lift and roll, gently roll the cake from short end to short end with the towel inside. Allow cake to cool completely, encased in towel with the seam side down.

3.  Make caramel:  Add sugar to a medium, heavy bottomed saucepan. Cook over medium heat until sugar begins to dissolve, swirling occasionally to evenly distribute heat. Allow to cook until caramel turns a reddish amber color. Add butter and stir to melt. Remove pan from heat and carefully add cream; mixture will bubble up. Return to heat if you need to dissolve any hardened pieces, otherwise, pour caramel into a jar or bowl and allow it to cool.

4.  Make filling and assemble cake:  In a large bowl, beat heavy cream, sugar, and liquor until stiff peaks form. Gently unroll cake and remove tea towel. Spread whipped cream evenly over cake, and reroll, short side to short side. Place cake seam side down on serving plate. Cut into one-inch slices or larger, and drizzle with a spoonful or two of the caramel. You may need to pop to caramel into the microwave for ten seconds to make it pourable. Cake will keep covered in the fridge for several days; leftover caramel will keep for a few days.