Coffee S'more Nutella Pie

“It’s called a ‘swing,’ not a ‘bounce,’” my partner barked in my ear as I bobbed away during my first contra dance last week in Bangor. I laughed it off and apologized, “Oh! It’s just that I’m excited to be learning. I’ll take note.” He grunted and mumbled advice about watching the other women to learn the feet properly, before I was passed off to another partner, this one blessedly more clueless than I was. There was a 16-year-old who swung me so hard I thought I would surely fall over, a professional dance mentor who forced me into constant, awkward eye contact to ward off dizziness (it worked?), and a young bespectacled beanpole who was counting all the beats and clearly annoyed when I interrupted him with a hullo during our turn together. Peter, my favorite besides Bonnie, was a tall soft-spoken fellow with bare feet and a ponytail who pulled me aside for a lesson in “centrifugal force” (spinning) and has been a contra dancer for as long as he can remember; he reminded me of my friend Aaron who can build anything, talk to anyone, and is one of the greatest fun-havers around. Arlene and I left the dance in stitches about some of the folks we met, others on whom we spied, and my own missteps too: the night was unexpectedly excellent.

That continuous laughter about everything, even cock-ups at the contra dance, is the precise difference between life now and six weeks ago. “Fuckton,” for instance, is acceptable workplace phraseology—and an exact unit of measurement!—and that freedom to let loose coupled with everyone’s generally sick and thriving senses of humor renders me doubled over with belly laughs on a near daily basis. There’s the whole farm thing and goats and cheese too, but it’s really the laughing that feels so different and welcome; I hope that it never dries up. And I'm doing my part to make sure that it doesn't by embracing being in new or weird situations as often as possible, especially if it means that I'll end up laughing at myself.

The Bangor dance was just one of many such moments where I had a guffaw-filled time by being out of my element, but it was also a self-imposed homework assignment. Arlene has warned me that it’s “only sort of okay” to be a contra first-timer at the dance in Belfast, and we're dead-set on attending in October. The coast on one side, country on the other, and jam-packed with awesome people and excellent food, Belfast is one of the best towns around, and the dance there also offers a potluck break and social hour halfway through the night. I can't wait to attend, pie in tow. This here s'more pie would be a great offering to such an event as it's a real crowd-pleaser. The crust tastes like a candy bar, the coffee ganache is outstanding, the marshmallow meringue ties the whole thing together with a sweet kick, and if you have a kitchen torch (we don't), it's an oven-free pie to boot. It would be welcome at any potluck, campfire, or giggle riot, or, if you’re working on a sweet farm in Maxfield, Maine, all three! 

Coffee S'more Nutella Pie

Adapted from Bon Appetit

The main thing I changed for this was to increase the volume and sweetness of the meringue. The original recipe called for the whites from just two eggs, which seemed skimpy, so I doubled it and the sugar. You'd be fine leaving the sugar at the original half-cup too, but don't pinch on the whites! Also, I've lately used nothing but salted butter because it's what we have. You could use either, and the original doesn't call for salt anyway, but it's pretty much the best ingredient for baked goods, so below you'll see salt both within and in addition to the butter.

Graham Cracker Crust

9 whole graham crackers, ground finely in a food processor

2 tablespoons heavy cream

2 tablespoons Nutella

1 ounce semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, melted

1 tablespoon salted butter, melted

Coffee Ganache

12 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (go with bittersweet if you can)

2 tablespoons salted butter, cut into half-inch cubes

1/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt, or to taste1 1/4 cups heavy cream

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons finely ground coffee beans

Meringue

4 large egg whites, at room temperature

Pinch salt

1 cup fine sugar

1.  For graham cracker crust: mix graham cracker crumbs and remaining ingredients in a small bowl to blend. Press mixture onto bottom and up sides of pie dish; chill until crust is firm, about 30 minutes.

2.  For coffee ganache: place chocolate and butter in a large bowl. Bring cream, coffee, and two tablespoons water to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat; cover and let steep for five minutes.

3.  Strain cream mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into bowl with chocolate and butter; discard coffee grounds. Stir until melted and ganache is smooth. Pour into chilled crust; smooth top. Chill in freezer while you clean up and prepare the meringue.

4.  For meringue: set a small pot of water to simmer over medium-low heat. When simmering, add egg whites and pinch of salt to the bowl of stand mixer or other heat-proof bowl. Place over but not touching simmering water, and, whisking constantly, cook until egg whites are warm to the touch, about three minutes.

5.  Next, whip eggs and pinch of salt using whisk attachment or egg beaters on medium until they’re foamy. With the machine running, gradually add sugar, and begin beating on high until eggs whites hold very stiff peaks. Plop the meringue all over your chocolate ganache, anchoring at the crust, and pop into the broiler for two to five minutes to toast the meringue; be sure not to burn! Keep the pie refrigerated if you can, although we kept ours at room temperature for three days and it was totally fine.

Red Potato Tart with Shallots, Kale, Mustard, and Goat Tomme

We’re awash in sugar ‘round these parts. Last week started with blackberry cobbler with “dip,” ended with maple bourbon goat milk waffles, and dropped us smack dab at yesterday’s door with a coffee-nutella-s’more pie. Dave recently balked on our banana-bread-off (after he tasted mine, might I add: scared stiff of the competition!), but I’m relieved not to have as much sweet stuff floating around the house; it’s time to come up for some salty air. And lo’ and behold: I live on a cheese farm. This is the perfect place to regenerate a salt tooth.

A month or two before I arrived, Arlene worked up a few wheels of goat tomme with vegetable ash running through their centers. We cut into them about two weeks ago, and while she of course had her critiques, I was totally smitten. The tomme tastes like a clean asiago, and it’s ended up being a dang-near perfect savory baking cheese—salty, nutty, the right sort of contrast to fruit and vegetables. And as much as I would love for you to come up to Maine and buy some in person, don’t let the travel distance stop you from making this tart! Swap in some asiago, parmesan, or any good hard cheese, and you’ll be rolling some savory bliss—a nice change of pace ‘round these parts.

Red Potato Tart with Shallots, Kale, Mustard, and Goat Tomme

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

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

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

Adapted significantly from Smitten Kitchen

I added shallots, kale, dijon, and a salt quantity to this. Also used a different crust, cut back the cream, and kept the egg white instead of using just the yolk. See here for her version with blue cheese.

One-half recipe savory pie or tart crust
3/4 pound small red potatoes
1/3 cup shredded cheese (we used farm-made goat tomme, but consider gouda, gruyere, asiago, havarti)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 medium shallot, sliced into thin rings
3 to 4 large leaves of kale, ribs removed, and leaves cut into ribbons
1 tablespoon dijon or other fine mustard
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 medium or large egg
1/2 teaspoon Diamond kosher salt (see here for salt tutorial to compensate if using other brand)
Cracked black pepper
Parsley for garnish, optional

1.  Roll out your dough to a ten-inch circle and fit it into an 8-inch tart pan. Prick all over with a fork, and place it in the freezer while you ready everything else. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with foil and set aside.

2.  Slice the potatoes into quarter-inch slices. Put into medium saucepan, cover with an inch or two of water, bring to a simmer, and cook for about ten minutes, until tender. Drain, and pat dry with a paper towel.

3. In a medium sautee pan, heat olive oil over medium until hot. Add shallots, and cook until wilted and starting to color, about five minutes. Add kale ribbons, and cook until bright green, two to three minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. Next, spread your mustard across the bottom of your frozen tart dough; use more if you wish, but a thin layer should do the trick. Whisk together the cream, egg, and salt, and set aside.
4.  Starting out the outside of your tart, overlap potato slices into one ring. Use a bit more than half of your kale ribbons and shallots to line the inner edge of your potato ring. Make your next circle of potatoes. Line that one with kale ribbons, and make your final third circle the middle. Use leftover potatoes to go back and fill in places where the potato circles might be thin. Top with your cheese and any remaining shallots. Slowly pour the cream and egg mixture across the top, allowing it to sink down into the spaces between potatoes. Crack some black pepper over the top, and bake on cookie sheet for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the cheese and crust are golden, and the filling is bubbling. Remove to a cooling rack for ten to 15 minutes, remove outer tart pan ring, top with a few torn parsley leaves if desired, and serve while still warm.

Tomatoes for a side salad with the goat tomme front and center-ish.

Stone Fruit Tartlets with Rough Puff Pastry

The WWOOFers manhandled these tartlets. The three of them showed up on a Monday, fell in love with each other, and then, under feigned personal duress and believable tremendous confusion, ditched the farm that Wednesday morning to pursue their triad; somewhere along the line they pounded back all of the desserts, drank a lot of Twisted Tea, and left skivvies tacked to a chair in the basement. “You know, when I grow up,” mused the 23-year-old, “what I really want to do is become a foodie. I think I’d like that.” Arlene and I snorted into our beers, and we would have dumped them on his head had we known that later that night he would announce with deep solemnity that the three of the them were forgoing the endless opportunity to learn to make incredible food so they could get it on somewhere else. 

While we all worked on cheese and goats, the three of them horsed around in the shower and waxed poetic about what it’s like to “work hard” and be away from home. And even though they thus annoyed me to hell and the shared farm attitude was “fuck ‘em,” in a backwards way I almost appreciate their inanity because it brought levity to the farm once they were gone—a fun story to tell my folks about the spoiled Oberlin kids gone awry. Plus, they were totally nuts about these tartlets, if that’s any kind of endorsement. Don’t have any stone fruit? Use apple slices! Or pears. Or pralines. Don’t have any sluggish WOOFers with whom to share them? Toast to your lucky stars.

Stone Fruit Tartlets

Yields about 12 to 15 tartlets, depending on size

Adapted from Apt. 2B Baking Co. and Not Without Salt

This was my first time making rough puff pastry, and while you can see that I overbaked it some and my fruit pieces were a wee wack, I am in love with this recipe. I am also in love with Yossy of Apt. 2B Baking Co. for always having the most easily beautiful photos and recipes to share. Not so much in love that I’d ditch my farm to run away together, but enough so that her blog inspires me every day. Read it!

For Rough Puff Pastry
Below is one-half of a full recipe, which is just what you'll need to make about one dozen to 15 tartlets. See full proportions and a photo tutorial here if you'd like.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
3 1/4 sticks (26 tablespoons) unsalted, very cold butter, cut into half-inch cubes
1/2 cup very cold water

1.  Sift together dry ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Add butter chunks, and mix on the lowest speed for 30 seconds. Drizzle the water over the top and mix on the lowest speed for 15 seconds. (You can also do this whole step by hand using a bench scraper, if you'd rather.)

2.  Dump flour mixture onto clean counter or pastry board. Using your hands and a bench scraper, push the crumbly mass into a long rectangle, with the long end parallel to your body. Using the bench scraper, fold the right third of the dough over into the center and then the left third of the dough into the center on top; it's like folding a business letter. Rotate the dough 90 degrees.

3.  Reshape and push the dough into a rectangle again. Repeat the folding and turning two more times for a total of three times folded. If the dough becomes soft, just refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes and continue. Once you've completed your turns, wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour.

4.  Remove dough from fridge and repeat process with three more turns. Where in the previous round your were mostly using your hands to push and shape the dough, a well-floured rolling pin will the do the trick now that the dough is more pliable. After the three turns (for a grand total of six), let dough rest, wrapped in fridge for 30 minutes; your dough is now ready to use! When baking, remember to preheat the oven for about an hour ahead of time, if you can.

For Assembly and Baking
As Yossy warns, these bake best in a very hot oven and when the pastry is very cold, almost frozen. My second batch puffed much more nicely than my first, so be sure to pre-heat your oven for a good while, and don't skimp on the freezer time for the pastry squares.

Rough puff pastry (see above)
5 to 7 pieces of stone fruit (one nectarine or peach will yield three tartlets if you slice well; one small plum or apricot will yield two)
1 egg + 1 tablespoon water, beaten with a fork until no streaks remain
1 teaspoon raw or large-grain sugar per tartlet
Powdered sugar for dusting, if desired

1. At least an hour prior to baking, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment. When ready to bake, on a lightly floured surface, roll out rough puff pasty to a quarter-inch thick, keeping it as close to a rectangle as you can. With a knife or bench scraper, cut pastry into squares, three or four inches on each side (plums fit well on three-inch squares, but I wish I'd gone bigger for nectarines). Move squares to cookie sheets, and chill in the freezer for 20 to 30 minutes.

2.  Meanwhile, halve and pit your stone fruit. Cut the halves into eighth-inch slices, keeping them together so that they're easy to fan out across the pastry. When the pastry is very cold, brush the tops with your egg wash. Arrange tartlets on sheets with an inch or so of space between. Sprinkle each square with about half a teaspoon of sugar, fan the fruit across, and top with the rest of the sugar so that each tartlet has about one teaspoon total. Brush the excess sugar from the pans so that it doesn't blacken in the oven (like mine did), and bake your tartlets for 15 to 20 minutes, until they're lightly golden (I went a little long on the ones pictured). Allow to cool for about ten minutes, and enjoy! They'll keep covered at room temperature for about three days, softening a little bit each day.

Blueberry Hyssop Pie

Slumpy little slice!

Our long-time cheesemaker, Arlene, is nursing her green thumb right along with her curd hands. Her garden out back runs amok with oodles of purple onions, more broccoli than we can shake a fork at, giant sunflowers, and hordes of a sweet little herb called hyssop. Previously unknown to me, hyssop has this week made its way into my iced tea, my lemonade, a goat cheese blueberry parfait, and inevitably, this pie. Known as licorice-mint in some parts of the country, and distinct from the same-named hyssop of the Mediterranean, anise hyssop hails from the mint family, lingers faintly like anise, and has a bit of balmy lemon flavor. It’s outstanding, in other words, and a lovely way to welcome into our kitchen the forthcoming months of blueberries.

As my dinner on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday, this pie has been, in a way, the dessert soundtrack to what’s starting to feel like the gradual diminishing of summer. There still remain several scorching weeks and we haven’t even scratched the surface of blackberries yet, but everything on the farm is being completed with a frantic eye toward autumn. We’re plucking the very last of the raspberries for our cheesecakes, making camembert every week for the fall, an aged cheese each Friday for winter, and adjusting as the goats slowly start to produce less and less milk. After a week of ardor and strange news, Arlene and I reveled in a quiet, far-away Saturday night spent at the lake. With bellies full of pie and beers in tow, we drove out to our secret diving rocks on Schoodic Lake to catch the purple sunset and a swim few leisurely laps before it got too dark to tell which way was up. It has been unexpected the way a town of 80 and farm of five manages to make me feel so grateful for moments of respite, which seem especially fleeting now as we prepare for fall. Fortunately, there are avenues for getting away, and sinking into a lake or this pie are surely two of them.

Blueberry Hyssop Pie

Inspired by Heidi Swanson's Blueberry Lemon Verbena Pie

Crust

2 sticks unsalted butter, very cold
½ cup to ¾ cup ice water
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

1.  Start by cubing your butter into half-inch pieces.  Put these in the freezer while you ready the rest of the ingredients.  Measure three-fourths cup of water, add some ice cubes and set aside to chill.

2.  Mix all of your dry ingredients to a large shallow bowl. Working quickly, cut the butter into the flour mixture with your pastry blender, or by rubbing the butter into the flour with your fingers. Continue until the butter pieces range in size from oatmeal flakes to lima beans.

3.  Drizzle just 4 ounces of the ice water (minus the cubes) over the butter flour. Using a rubber spatula, cut the moisture quickly into the dough, gathering it together as you do. If the dough is too dry, add more water 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together in a shaggy mess. Push the dough together, divide into two equal pieces, and wrap in plastic wrap.  Flatten into disks about five inches in diameter, and store in the fridge for at least an hour, preferably longer.

Filling

⅔ cup granulated sugar

25 fresh hyssop leaves chopped to equal ⅓ cup (scroll down for photo)
2 pounds of blueberries
⅓ cup all-purpose flour or cornstarch
¼ teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
zest from juiced lemon
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg plus one tablespoon water, whisked until no streaks remain
Large-grain or natural sugar for sprinkling

1.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. With a mortar and pestle or in a small bowl using the end of a tapered rolling pin or handle of a wooden spoon, grind the sugar and herbs together to release the hyssop’s flavor. This takes about five minutes, and you’ll see the sugar start to clump together with the oils when you’ve gone far enough. Add blueberries to a large bowl, and gently toss with sugar, flour/cornstarch, and blueberries.

2. Roll out one of your two pasty dough disks to 11 or 12 inches, and fit into a 9-inch pie plate with about one inch of overhang. Pop in the fridge while you roll out your second disk to a roughly 12-inch circle, and if there’s room, place this disk on the back of a cookie sheet and slide it into the fridge while you assemble the pie. Pile the berry mixture into your lined pie plate, carefully mounding in the center until berries start to spill down the sides. Pour lemon juice over berries, dot with butter, and top with lemon zest.

3.  Center top pastry dough over the berries. Pinch the edges of the two crusts together, roll them under the bottom crust, and pinch decoratively. Cut slits in the top for steam vents. Brush the top crust with your egg wash, sprinkle with large-grain sugar for crunch, and place pie on a foil-lined baking sheet. Pop in the oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, checking often after the 25-minute mark to ensure that crust isn’t burning. If it is, just place a sheet of foil over the top. Remove pie from oven when crust is deep golden brown and filling is bubbling, and allow to cool to room temperature for several hours. Leftover pie keeps well in the fridge!

The only green this blog has ever known.