Ingredients
Slices of cool fresh peaches are served in wineglasses with a nectar-like wine syrup and surprisingly concentrated flavors. This is one of the more intriguing fruit desserts you’ll taste, and there’s nothing to it merely peaches, sugar, wine and an interesting technique. Some country people still use this old trick for making decent fruit taste better and superb fruit luscious. Macerating sliced peaches with sugar permeates them with sweetness and concentrates their flavors while drawing out their juices and turning them into a nectar-like syrup. Then, marinating the fruit in wine releases still more tastes, because certain flavors are soluble only in alcohol. Farmers may not have known the science of this technique, but they knew a day of steeping in sugar and wine in a cool cellar gave the family splendid fruit for after supper.
Ingredients
Ingredients
A round of “Kumbaya,” anyone? Even when campfire is swapped for grill, these iconic outdoor sweet treats are still the ultimate, undefeated crowd pleaser, intoning young hearts, be free tonight with every ooey-gooey mouthful!
This rich, intensely chocolate cake is the perfect dinner party dessert because it is both so easy to make and seriously delicious. Like a little black dress, the recipe can be improvised on endlessly to create different effects. Add exotic flavorings such as freshly ground pink or black peppercorns, ancho chile, Mexican cinnamon, curry powder or garam masala (about 1/4 teaspoon); dried, unsprayed lavender flowers or herbes de Provence (1/2 teaspoon, crumbled), or ground Earl Gray tea (2 teaspoons). Or stir 3/4 cup coarsely chopped nuts such as roasted pistachios, hazelnuts or pecans into the finished batter. For chocolate almond cake, add the barest whisper of almond extract (a scant 1/8 teaspoon) and chopped toasted almonds (Spanish Marcona almonds are sensational).
Our pâte brisée--butter, salt, and a little water to bring it all together--is as traditional as a crust gets. Sebastien likes to add a bit of milk and egg to many of his doughs, for richness and binding power, but this pâte brisée reflects my enduring respect for classical technique. It's something every cook should master--it's so easy and so versatile. Pâte brisée is used for savory tarts, such as quiches, and for very sweet tarts.
We have no idea if this dish comes from France, but its clever simplicity feels utterly French to us.
This big, dramatic, open-face fruit tart looks like it just came off the set of an Italian country magazine shoot. Better yet, it’s nearly no work. Bake the crust ahead when summer temperatures are cool. Whenever you feel like serving the dessert, slather it with the ricotta-mascarpone cream (done ahead as well) and top it with the fruit and herbs. Any single fruit or combo works, but ripe melons and stone fruits with berries are a favorite.
Smoked almonds bring new life to the ever-popular salted caramel sundae.