Prune

Please find me. We have to make this one together if it’s your first time; it’s tricky. Also, keep in mind, this isn’t even a real kouign amann—it’s Prune’s streamlined and shortcut version of a real one—and even so, it’s still impossibly difficult. Be sure to find me before you start and let’s make it together.

Also, here more than any other thing we make, be sure to have all of your ingredients and all of your equipment at the ready in front of you before you start.

1 cake

10½ ounces all-purpose flour

1 pinch kosher salt

1 teaspoon and 1 splash orange flower water

1 teaspoon and 1 heaping ¼ teaspoon dry granulated yeast

1 cup tepid water

8 ounces salted French butter from Normandy (plus a few Tablespoons for melting and for preparing baking dish)

1 cup sugar (plus a couple of Tablespoons for finishing cake before baking, and for preparing the baking dish)

Equipment:

small stainless bowl

2 medium stainless bowls

glass pie plate

clean dry rolling pin

clean dry pastry brush

bench scraper

1 Tablespoon measuring spoon

curved plastic dough scraper

pint container of bench flour

½ sheet pan fitted with ½ sheet of parchment

Proof yeast in ½ cup of the tepid water in the small stainless bowl.

Mix flour and salt together in a medium stainless bowl.

Add bloomed yeast and the rest of the tepid ½ cup water and a splash of orange flower water to the flour/salt.

Work into a soft, sticky dough—I usually do this with my hands and with the round plastic dough scraper. Scrape all the dough off of your hands.

Spray a medium stainless bowl with Pam.

Use the plastic curved dough scraper and scrape entire contents of your sticky dough into the greased stainless bowl. Set on top of espresso machine until it has risen to double its size.

Set in refrigerator for half an hour.

While it is retarding, butter and sugar a 9-inch glass pie dish. Line a half sheet pan with parchment.

Lightly dust work surface with a little bench flour and set 8-ounce butter block on the dusted surface.

Lightly pound the butter with a rolling pin into a 6" × 8" rectangle, using the bare minimum of flour to keep it from sticking to the work surface and the rolling pin.

Retrieve starter dough from refrigerator.

Using plastic round scraper, get dough out of the bowl and onto the lightly floured work surface.

With your fingers, tenderly press and stretch the dough into a 9" × 11" rectangle as best as you can.

Use the metal bench scraper and lift the butter rectangle, center it inside the dough rectangle and, using your fingers, fully enclose the butter inside the dough, as if you were hastily wrapping a Christmas present.

Seal the seams as best as you can where the dough comes together, lift gently, and place seam-side down on the ½ sheet pan.

Return to the refrigerator for 5 minutes.

Be sure now to have at your work surface: a clean metal dough/bench scraper, a clean dry pastry brush, a small container of flour for dusting the work surface, a Tablespoon, and the 1 cup of sugar. Have a glass pie dish at the ready which has been buttered and sugared.

Make sure both your work surface and the rolling pin are absolutely clean and free of debris.

Lightly dust work surface and rolling pin with flour.

Retrieve dough from walk-in, and set seam-side down on floured work surface.

From here to finish work clean, work fast, and touch the dough with your bare warm hands as little as possible. Scrape the sticky bits that cling to the rolling pin often, incorporate them back into the dough, and keep your pin clean, dry, and dusted with flour. That being said—you want to use as little flour as possible from start to finish, so that this ends up more like a confection—butter and sugar barely held together with flour—and less like a cake or bread—butter and flour seasoned with sugar, if you follow me.

Roll dough to 8" × 14" rectangle. Immediately you will notice the butter enclosed inside start to bind with the dough.

Fastidiously sprinkle two Tablespoons of sugar over entire surface of sheet—but without spilling out onto work surface. (Any errant sugar on the work surface melts and makes the already fragile dough that much harder to handle.)

Using metal bench scraper fold top of dough down by ⅓, like a letter. Brush any bench flour off of dough.

Fold bottom ⅓ of dough up, like a letter, overlapping by an inch in the middle.

Brush off any flour.

Lift the dough with the metal bench scraper, rotate dough clockwise so seam is now north to south in front of you.

Roll out to 8" × 14" rectangle and repeat process of adding sugar in 2-Tablespoon increments.

Turn the dough a total of 8 times until all of the sugar is incorporated and the dough is sticky and almost unmanageable.

(This is like all laminated doughs—puff, croissant—and a “turn” is to roll out to legal-size sheet, fold like a letter, then rotate so the seam goes from north to south. This rushed, bastardized Prune version, though, skips the process of refrigerating between each turn. Maybe someday when we have a real pastry chef on staff…)

Between each turn, scrape bench clean, scrape pin clean, lightly dust both with flour, and move fast to keep dough as cool as possible.

Carefully get the finished dough, now weeping and pockmarked from all the sugar and also the salt in the butter—seam side down, into the prepared pie dish and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Before baking, set on top of espresso machine until the rectangle shape of the cold dough has softened and ballooned to fill the pie dish, about 30 minutes.

Brush lavishly with the melted butter, sprinkle with remaining orange flower water, and sprinkle generously with sugar.

Bake in 425° oven for approximately 45 minutes.

Cover with foil if top is browning too fast and bottom of cake is not yet properly “candied.”

Lift the pie plate up over your head so you can really scrutinize the bottom of the dough to see if there is a raw or undercooked center area, as happens often. You want an entirely “candied”-looking surface on the bottom, a bit like a socarrat in paella-making—that light crusty layer of rice that forms on the bottom of the paella pan.

Ricotta Ice Cream with Dark Caramel Croutons

Yield: 6 pints +/−	½ batch
4 cups heavy cream	2c. cream
2 cups milk	1 c. milk
18 egg yolks	9 yolks
2 cups sugar	1 c. sugar
6 cups ricotta, blended in Vita-Prep until silken	3c. ricotta

Scald milk and cream.

Whisk egg yolks and sugar in Kitchen Aid with whisk attachment until ribbony, thick, and satiny.

Season with pinch salt in final turns of the whisk.

Temper sugar/yolks mixture with some scalded milk. Be sure to scrape down sides of bowl and also bottom of bowl.

Return tempered egg to hot milk mixture and heat, over medium-low flame, stirring constantly with a heatproof rubber spatula, being sure to drag the bottom fastidiously to prevent scorching and scrambling the eggs.

Keep an Insta-Read with you and cook to 180°.

Move fast and remove custard from heat immediately, strain through fine-mesh sieve into waiting cold stainless bowl set over ice bath. That pot of custard is heavy and requires two hands to lift, for me at least. The tamis is useful here as it sits atop the waiting bowl conveniently and frees up your hands to lift and pour the hot custard. The chinois is a pain.

Spin the bowl in the ice, holding your rubber spatula stationary like a rudder in a boat, and bring the temperature down quickly.

Whisk in ricotta until fully integrated. Transfer to cylindrical bains and when chilled, give it a good buzz with the immersion blender.

Chill the custard overnight.

Churn in batches to machine capacity.

*Set chill element for 30 mins before you churn.

Take care to taste for texture along the way, pulling out of the machine before any butter granules form.

Scoop into already labeled metal ⅓ pans and freeze. The tape label won’t stick to a cold/frozen pan.

For the caramel:

Yield: 1 quart	x2
2 cups sugar	4
½ cup water	1 c. h₂o
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice	8 tsp.
½ pound butter	1#
½ teaspoon salt	1 tsp
1½ cups cream	3 c.

Heat lemon juice, sugar and water in heavy-bottomed stainless steel pot over low heat until sugar satisfactorily dissolves.

Raise heat and bring syrup to a boil. Hold the boil, without stirring, until syrup begins to turn golden, then reduce heat to low.

Combine butter and cream in saucepot and heat until butter has melted and the mixture is hot. Stir together well.

When sugar passes a deep golden color and is headed toward dark mahogany brown, immediately remove from heat and rest on countertop.

Whisk in butter/cream mixture.

Be careful. It really hisses and splatters when you add the cream.

Season with salt.

When cool, pack in quart containers.

For the croutons:

Remove crusts from 1 pound brioche Pullman loaf.

Cut brioche into 1½" square croutons. Show some knife skills, please. Sometimes I have seen them wildly uneven.

Arrange in single layer on parchment on sheet pan and toast slowly in 325° oven until golden on all sides and fully desiccated. You will have to turn them during the toasting to get undersides. Store in airtight container.

To plate:

Heat caramel very gently in small saucepot over lowest flame. Keep a small pot of this warm all through service, without letting it cook or separate. You’ll have to shuffle it around a bit throughout the night.

Soak 5 croutons in the warm caramel while you temper your ice cream. Let the caramel penetrate the croutons without dissolving them.

Spoon croutons and caramel into bottom of bowl, place large, pleasing well-rounded mound of ice cream in center.

Please don’t quenelle—we don’t want to send that message.

Finish with just a few flakes Maldon sea salt.

Individual Apple Galettes with Whipped Mascarpone

1 pound apples per portion—only Rome, Braeburn, or Granny Smith	20#
1 Tablespoon orange-scented sugar per portion, plus more for preparing the ramekins	2c.
unsalted butter for preparing the ramekins
1 5-ounce disposable aluminum ramekin per portion, buttered and sugared with orange-scented sugar
parchment collars cut and taped around outside of each to extend height of ramekins by 2 inches
1 2-ounce ceramic ramekin per portion

This is hands down the most labor-intensive, tedious production of anything we have ever made here throughout the history of time. And it’s nothing but apples. I apologize for the tedium but, as ever, please take the time to do it right. Don’t hack it, rush it, jack up the oven temperature, skimp on the portion size, decrease the height of the tower, or shortcut in any other way. Most important, do not forget to ask the morning crew to pull them when they arrive and don’t ever forget to put a large sign on the oven door when you leave them overnight. I have seen some very real heartbreak.!!!

Zest one orange, taken in full ribbon, and twist into 2 cups sugar to release as much of its oil as possible into the sugar. Store the orange peel in the sugar.

Peel the apples whole and core up through their centers, leaving hollow middles. Get all the seeds and all the sharp, plasticky pods.

Then cut the apples in ½ and slice thin ½ moons, ⅛" thick. Keep the apples organized neatly in front of you so you can keep track of portioning—it’s just shy of two whole apples per ramekin.

Lay out sugared, collared ramekins in front of you.

Place two halves of apple into the bottoms of the ramekins, re-creating the circular shape they had when they were whole, by overlapping their cut edges slightly.

Sprinkle with ⅛ teaspoon orange sugar.

Turn ramekins a quarter turn and lay in 2 apple slices, re-creating a circle, by overlapping the cut edges slightly. Your seams will now be ¼ turn apart from the first layer. Sprinkle with ⅛ teaspoon of orange sugar.

Repeat in this way until you have filled the ramekin all the way to the top and exceeded the rim of the ramekin by a full inch, allowing the parchment collar to hold your tower of apple rings.

At a certain point, you will need to use three ½-moon slices per layer to make the circles complete as the circumference of the ramekin widens a bit. Each layer needs to be solid apple—you can’t have a hollow center or the towers will cave in.

Sprinkle ⅛ teaspoon of sugar over every layer, including the final one.

When they are all built, set 2-ounce ceramic ramekins directly on top layer of apple inside of parchment collar to weigh down the apples during cooking.

Set the ramekins on a sheet pan and place in 175° oven and bake overnight—give them 8–10 hours.

Put a huge note on oven door so morning prep crew does not come in and crank ovens unwittingly.**

Let them cool. Remove the collars.

They will be gorgeous, syrupy, juicy, and will have shrunk to almost ½ their original height.

Remove the ceramic ramekins carefully, making sure no apple has stuck to the bottom.

To plate:

Turn out into center of small shallow bowl. Allow all syrup to drain out.

Spoon or pipe a casual, glossy small dollop of plain whipped mascarpone in center.

Zest of 1 orange per 2 cups sugar is enough. Keep it subtle. Make in larger batches and store.

If you are hand-shopping apples at the farmer’s market, be sure you know what variety you are selecting and only buy apples that retain their shape during cooking.

*To assemble 20 of these is a formidable task. Plan your prep day accordingly or you will be seriously weeded.*

Calvados Omelette

For the batter:

Yield: 4 orders	x12
4 eggs	12 eggs
⅔ cup cream	2c.
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar	¼c.
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour	¼c.
½ teaspoon vanilla extract (use Madagascar or Tahitian, not the Mexican)	1½tsp
pinch salt	salt
4 teaspoons unsalted butter	4T.

Combine the ingredients for the batter in a stainless bowl and whisk until thoroughly blended.

For finishing:

4 Tablespoons Calvados

4 teaspoons butter, softened

2 teaspoons sugar

Per order:

Heat 1 teaspoon of butter in a nonstick 6" pan. When foaming, add 2½ ounces batter and let set briefly. With a rubber heatproof spatula, pull omelette into the center from noon, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock and then do that again, from 1, 4, 7, and 11 o’clock until all the loose batter has run into the empty spaces and the omelette is set.

Lift up an edge of the omelette to see the color and when it is golden brown, flip the omelette.

Pour in a generous Tablespoon of Calvados and tip the pan to the flame to ignite the alcohol. Be sure that the Calvados you are using is at room temperature and not been refrigerated.

Remove the pan from the stove and let the flames burn out, then quickly slide onto a plate.

While warm, spread a teaspoon of softened butter over the surface of the omelette and sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of sugar to finish.

Butter and Sugar Sandwiches

Per order:

2 slices of Pullman bread, sliced ½-inch thick

¾ ounce unsalted butter, cool, waxy, but spreadable

1 teaspoon sugar, plus more for edging

2 ounces heavy cream

Spread half the butter on one slice of bread and half on the other slice.

Sprinkle ½ teaspoon sugar over each buttered slice. Press the two slices together and cut in half on the diagonal.

Put some sugar on a plate and dip cut edges of sandwich in it. Tap off excess for neat presentation.

Pour cold cream into a small coffee cup or large ramekin for dunking.

Nothing to hide behind here, so make sure the bread is ultra fresh, the butter-to-sugar ratio accurate, the temperature of the butter soft but not greasy or melted, and the cream fresh and cold.

Cornmeal Pound Cake with Rosemary Syrup, Candied Rosemary, and Poached Pear

For the cornmeal pound cake:

Shallow loaf	x1 deep	x2 deep
1 cup all-purpose flour	1 c.	4c.
1 cup cornmeal	2c.	4c.
5 eggs	10	20
1 teaspoon vanilla extract	2tsp	1 T. + 1 tsp
½ pound butter	1#	2#
1⅓ cups sugar	2½c.	5¹/₃c.
¼ teaspoon salt	salt +/-	salt

Set oven to 325°.

Prepare pans with spray, then parchment, then spray again and light dusting of flour on top of the parchment.

Use whisk attachment and beat butter in mixer until creamy.

Add sugar and salt, beat on high for 3–5 minutes. Let it get fluffy and opaque and nearly white and scrape down sides a couple of times during beating.

Add vanilla to eggs, then add eggs one at a time, more or less, to the creamed butter and sugar with the motor running on medium high.

Scrape down sides with rubber spatula and make sure all is incorporated a couple of times during the adding of the egg. Keep it light and fluffy; 3–4 minutes.

While butter mixture is creaming, whisk together the equal parts flour and cornmeal and turn out onto a full sheet of parchment.

Lift the parchment by the two long sides, creating a convenient chute, and add the flour mixture to the butter, ⅓ at a time, with the motor running on low.

Again with the rubber spatula! Please make sure you scrape down the sides and incorporate all of the material after each addition.

Neatly pour/spoon the batter into the prepared pan or pans.

*Use the 4"x13" that we use for banana bread

Spread the batter around with an offset spatula to make a smooth top, and tap the pans a few times gently to let the batter settle evenly in the pans.

Bake at 325° for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Test for doneness with a wooden skewer—the crumb of this cake is coarse enough that the wooden skewer is fine, preferred even—don’t use the metal testers.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out and cool on rack. Peel off parchment during the cooling.

For the pears poached in rosemary syrup:

6 Forelle pears, 1 day short of perfectly ripe

a few black peppercorns

½ vanilla bean, split

3 branches rosemary

1 cup Riesling

3 cups water

2 cups granulated sugar

Peel the pears in long gliding strokes, from stem to bottom, with a very sharp vegetable peeler, held like a paring knife. Don’t chip away at them with short ugly strokes.

Leave stems intact if you can swing it; it looks better on the plate.

Combine the water, wine, sugar, vanilla, rosemary, and peppercorns in stainless steel heavy-bottomed saucepot, large enough to just contain the pears.

Bring to a boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer.

Add the pears and cover with a double circle of parchment cut to the same diameter as the pot, and cover with a lid one size too small for the pot.

Poach the pears for just 10 minutes, or until a skewer inserted at the deepest center of the pear meets little—but some—resistance. To test the doneness, go up through the bottom and use a cake tester so you don’t leave such a big hole from the wooden skewer.

Remove from the burner and let the pears cool in the syrup, keeping in mind that they will continue to cook from the residual heat.

Take care with your cooking time so that the pears can cool—and “cure”—in the syrup, like we do with all of the syrup-poached or candied fruits here. But if you’ve accidentally taken them too far, remove the fruit with a slotted spoon—and set them on a baker’s drying rack over a ½ sheet pan—and get them in the walk-in quickly to cool down. Make sure they have some room around them for the cold air to circulate.

Rapid cool the syrup in an ice bath, return the fruit to the syrup when both are cool, and store in the syrup.

For the candied rosemary:

6 beautiful branches rosemary with thin leaves, not the tight bushy kind, 4" in length

½ cup cold water

1 cup granulated white sugar (check first to see if there is rosemary-scented superfine from previous batch and use that instead if so)

superfine sugar for dredging and storing

Thoroughly mix together sugar and water in small saucepan and set over medium-high heat.

Bring to a simmer.

Add rosemary sprigs and, without stirring, allow to simmer for just a few minutes, no more than 5. We want the syrup perfumed with the rosemary but the branches to retain their color, which will brighten in the hot syrup.

Remove from heat and with a fork retrieve rosemary sprigs from syrup, draining well. Make sure the rosemary is sticky but not dripping; you want the sugar to adhere in a light dusting and not like heavy snow weighing down the boughs of a Christmas tree.

Drag sticky rosemary spears through a good pile of superfine sugar, completely coating each sprig, and set them to dry on a baker’s rack.

When completely dry, pack sprigs in superfine, and keep airtight. The rectangular take-out containers are good.

If the basement prep area is too humid, take them upstairs to pastry station and let them dry there. Otherwise they don’t dry properly and they look amateur.

Reserve rosemary syrup for finishing the pound cake. And save the superfine for next batch of syrup.

On the plate:

Slab of cornmeal pound cake, approximately as wide as your thumb, cut in half on the diagonal.

Stack halves artfully.

Place pear beside pound cake, stem up.

Spoon substantial amount of rosemary syrup over pear, and allow to pool up a bit on the plate. Not swimming or drowned but generous.

Garnish with a candied, sugared rosemary sprig.

**Remind servers to tell customers the seeds are still inside the pears.**

Trou Normande

Per order:

In short-stemmed glass:

1 small well-packed scoop green apple sorbet from Il Laboratorio.

Make a small well in the sorbet with back of espresso spoon.

Pour over 1 ounce Calvados Pays d’Auge.

Set on espresso saucer.

Frozen Milk Punch with Sesame Biscuits

Yield: 20 orders

For the milk punch:

2 cups sugar

2 cups Gosling’s black rum

1 cup Christian Brothers brandy

4 Tablespoons pure Tahitian vanilla extract

2 quarts milk

For the sesame biscuits (from Foods of Greece by Diane Kochilas):

¾ cup olive oil

¾ cup sugar

1 Tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt

1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon

½ cup dry red wine

3 cups flour

1 cup sesame seeds, toasted

plastic mister bottle with clean cool water

For the milk punch:

In a large stainless bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients, making sure that the sugar has completely dissolved by running your finger across the bottom of the bowl and checking that there is no grit of sugar.

Divide among 4 heavy-duty quart containers, leaving room at the top for the mixture to expand when frozen. Cover with lids and freeze for at least 24 hours.

Remove 1 quart at a time—as needed—and, using a sturdy fork or the Parmesan spade, chop up the mixture right in its own container until it becomes slushy. Refreeze.

For the sesame biscuits:

Set oven to 350°.

In a large stainless bowl, whisk together the sugar and the olive oil until dissolved and creamy.

Add the baking powder, baking soda, pinch of salt, cinnamon, and red wine and whisk until thoroughly combined.

With a sturdy spoon, stir in the flour and beat vigorously until the dough comes together, then knead by hand a moment to a smooth consistency.

Scoop 1-inch balls of dough and roll into perfect spheres between the palms of your hands, then press each cookie between thumb and forefinger to make a thick button or puck shape.

Dip in toasted sesame seeds to fully coat and lay on sheet pan lined with parchment. (You do not need to leave much space between them as they do not flatten during baking.)

If you have difficulty getting the sesame seeds to stick, mist them super gently on the finest setting with the water before tossing in the sesame seeds.

Bake for 20 minutes.

When completely cool, pack in airtight containers.

To plate:

3 sesame-red wine biscuits, small glass frozen milk punch, long-handled iced-tea spoon.

Lemon Panna Cotta with All the Summer Berries, Cooked with Cassis

Yield: 8 orders

For the panna cotta:

3½ cups heavy cream

1 cup milk

½ cup sugar

grated zest of 2 lemons

1 scant Tablespoon granulated gelatin

¼ cup water

Sprinkle gelatin over water in thin, even film to bloom.

Scald milk and cream with the sugar and lemon zest.

Dissolve the softened gelatin in the scalded milk.

Strain through fine-mesh china cap into stainless bowl set over ice bath and chill until starting to become viscous, but don’t let it gel.

Give it a go with the immersion blender, then portion into nine 4-ounce ramekins.

Chill overnight.

Taste the 9th panna cotta to know how the other 8 are.

For the berries:

4 pints mixed berries—try to include 1 pint of red currants if they are available

¼ cup crème de cassis (use the beautiful stuff from Dijon—ask bar manager to order extra when this is on the menu)

¼–½ cup sugar (depending on the sweetness of the fruit)

Briefly rinse berries. If there are excellent small strawberries, hull them and leave whole or cut in half, depending on their size.

Cook down berries with sugar in stainless steel pot until the berries swell and release a ton of juice but still retain texture and shape. Maybe 10 minutes over medium heat, but keep an eye on it.

Cool quickly over ice bath, but stir very gently. Don’t manhandle. When cool, stir in cassis.

To plate:

Spoon berries into the dessert bowl first and then turn out the panna cotta into the center or vice versa, whichever you find easier. I don’t need to micromanage how you get it into the plate, but be sure the panna cotta is a pristine white glorious blob in the center and that you do not stain it or drip on it with berry juice.

A flat of berries costs 50 bucks.

*DO NOT OVERCOOK*

Mastic Fondant in Ice Water

Yield: 1 full pint:

2 cups sugar

⅓ cup glucose

½ cup water

1 full teaspoon mastic crystals

In clean spice grinder, grind mastic crystals with 1 Tablespoon of the sugar to powder.

Combine rest of sugar and water in small clean stainless pot with tight-fitting lid and bring to simmer. When sugar is completely dissolved and liquid is clear, add the glucose. Bring mixture to 240°—lid on, lid off—as needed to prevent sugar crystals.

Stir in ground mastic powder; remove from heat.

Set a couple of hotel pans filled with ice and a little water and a good shower of salt (to bring temp way down) on your work surface and chill a nice section of the stainless steel worktable in front of you, about 3 feet wide. Chill your work surface for as long as you can while the syrup cools to 110°.

Get the sturdy metal dough scraper with the wooden handle—the syrup is hot and hard to work.

Remove the ice pans; make sure the counter is dry and clean, and cold.

At 110°, pour syrup directly onto cold counter, and go at it: big, sweeping figure eights with the dough scraper. Move fast and give it muscle. Work the paste over and over and over like this. You will bring it from a syrup to stiff soft taffy, from clear glass liquid to opaque glossy white paste.

Use the dough scraper to transfer the fondant to a glass Ball jar with a lid; does not need to be refrigerated, but can be. Scrub down the table immediately with hot soapy water and the metal pot scrubbers. The mastic will leave a sticky film for a couple of days, but continued daily scrubbings eventually get it all off. Make sure you clean out the spice mill container with a dry cloth—once mastixa gets wet, it’s a nightmare to remove.

To plate:

One healthy spoonful neatly scooped up with a long-handled parfait spoon, dropped into tall glass of ice water. Set the glass on an espresso saucer to serve.

Pear Tarte Tatin

Yield: 8 orders

4 (2½ pounds) Bosc pears, peeled, halved and cored

1 cup sugar

¼ cup unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

2 Tablespoons light corn syrup

1 sheet puff pastry

Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Balsamic Syrup Swirl

Sprinkle sugar evenly over bottom of heavy 9" cake pan with 2"-high sides.

Scatter butter cubes over sugar, then drizzle with light corn syrup.

Arrange the pear halves in the sugar in an attractive circle, round bottoms at the edge, pointed tips at the center, and the hollow core side up with the rounded bottoms down on the sugar.

Place the pears in a 375° oven and let them cook for about 2 hours and 45 minutes, until they become candied orbs, translucent and gorgeous. Don’t turn them or touch them. Just leave them in the oven.

Cut a full 9" circle from the puff pastry and place on ½ sheet pan fitted with a ½ parchment sheet.

Bake in the 375° oven for approximately 15 minutes until the pastry disk is golden brown and puffed up like a pillow. Remove and let cool.

When the pears are cooked and the sugar has started to become caramel and the juices from the pears have become part of the sugary caramel, remove the pears from the oven and place the cake pan directly onto the stovetop burner. If the pears were not ripe and juicy enough at the outset, pour in a little liquid to help the caramel along. Use pear juice, apple cider, or if there is pear water from brunch pancake prep, use that.

Over low heat, cook the syrup just a few minutes until big soapy bubbles form and the syrup becomes a true amber caramel. Remove from heat immediately.

Place the puff pastry pillow directly on top of the pears—domed-side down. It should fit snugly and perfectly within the diameter of the cake pan.

Place a clean ½ sheet pan lined with parchment over the tatin and very carefully—but swiftly—invert. Tap the pan to be sure all of the pears have dropped down, then remove the cake pan.

Portion into eighths—allowing full ½ pear per slice.

Serve warm with the Brown Sugar Ice Cream.

Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Balsamic Syrup Swirl

For the ice cream:

	x2QTS +/-
6 egg yolks	12 yolks
¾ cup brown sugar	½c.
1½ cups heavy cream	3c.
1½ cups whole milk	3c.
½ vanilla bean, split and scraped	1 bean
1 cup balsamic vinegar (use the bulk crappy jug kind, not our expensive aged stuff in bottles)

Reduce balsamic at a gentle simmer in a stainless steel saucepot by exactly half. Allow to cool.

Beat yolks with ½ cup of the brown sugar in stand mixer with whisk attachment until ribbony and doubled in volume.

Whisk together cream, milk, and remaining ¼ cup of the sugar, and vanilla bean and then bring to scald over medium-high heat.

Add hot milk mixture to yolks slowly in a steady stream with the mixer on low speed to temper.

Return custard to pot and cook over medium heat, constantly stirring and dragging the bottom with a heatproof rubber spatula to prevent scorching/curdling. Don’t use a whisk. Bring to 180°.

Remove from heat and strain immediately into a cold bowl set in an ice bath to cool rapidly. Spin bowl round and round inside the ice bath, holding your spatula still in the cooling custard like a rudder in a boat, until the temperature significantly drops.

Transfer to lidded containers and refrigerate overnight.

Buzz chilled custard base with immersion blender before churning.

Churn in batches to machine capacity.

Drizzle in balsamic syrup in the last turn of the blades to swirl and shut off machine before the syrup loses its distinct swirl. Transfer to metal pans and freeze immediately. Allow to freeze overnight before using.

Cornmeal Cookie with Candied Rhubarb and Cold Almond Cream

For cornmeal cookie:

Yield: 8 cookies	x16
12 Tablespoons butter	12oz.
¼ cup 10X sugar	½c.
½ teaspoon vanilla extract	1 tsp
pinch salt	½tsp
1 cup all-purpose flour	2c.
½ cup cornmeal	1 c.

Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla at medium speed for a full 5–6 minutes. Use the paddle attachment.

Add flour, salt, and cornmeal and mix on low setting until blended; 3 minutes. It’s a stiff dough; don’t overwork the machine!

Turn out onto counter and flatten into manageable disk or rectangle, then wrap with film and refrigerate 1 hour.

Spot-spray the table with Pam to secure a sheet of parchment so it doesn’t slip around. Roll chilled dough out directly on the parchment to even ⅛" thickness.

Lift parchment onto sheet pan and cut large circles, but do not remove trim or cookies themselves—dough is too fragile. Use the 5" fluted-edge cutter.

Chill in freezer or walk-in for 20 minutes before lifting off the excess dough. Reroll scrap to get full yield.

Bake cookies 18–20 minutes in conventional oven. Rotate once halfway through.

*Don’t need much space between — they do not spread during baking.*

When cool, dust evenly with 10X sugar rained down through fine-mesh sieve.

For the candied rhubarb:

8 orders

1 pound crimson/pink ripe rhubarb, cut into 1-inch slices

*order hothouse / conventional NOT THE ORGANIC STUFF FROM THE FARM, PLEASE.

1 cup superfine sugar

Macerate rhubarb with superfine sugar in a stainless steel bowl for 45 minutes or an hour, until sugar has dissolved and syrup has formed.

Turn out in single layer into hotel pan.

Crumple a sheet of parchment paper, run it under cold water, then uncrumple it and drop it loosely on top of rhubarb and set in 300° oven until tender, about 40 minutes.

I forget who taught us this trick but it lets the rhubarb steam ever so slightly during the roast and it retains its shape without dissolving into mush.

For the almond cream:

2 cups	x1QT
5 egg yolks	10 yolks
3 Tablespoons sugar	6-8T.
1½ cups milk	3c.
pinch of salt	salt
1½ teaspoons pure almond extract	1 T.

Whisk together yolks, sugar, and salt just to blend.

Scald milk.

Temper yolks with some of the hot milk, then add all milk to yolks. Mix well. Return mixture to pot and stir constantly with large rubber heatproof spat over medium heat. Do not crank the heat to make it go faster. Drag the bottom fastidiously to prevent any scrambled egg bits. Cook to 175°. Stir gently and continuously. Don’t walk away.

Pour through fine-mesh chinois into waiting chilled bowl set over ice bath. Add almond extract. Spin the bowl, using rubber spatula like a boat rudder, to rapidly chill.

This crème anglaise base is Emily Luchetti’s from the old Stars book. Don’t use any other! Don’t grab recipes from the Web willy-nilly. There is so much unreliable crap out there.

To plate:

Nice pool of cold almond cream.

Neat spoonful of candied rhubarb set in center.

Cap with giant cookie.

*Be careful not to leave your fingerprints in the powdered sugar when plating.*

Zucchini Fritters, Whipped Greek Yogurt, Toasted Almond Sugar

Yield: 8 orders

For the fritters:

2⅓ cups shredded zucchini

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ cup sugar

¾ cup almond or pistachio flour

all-purpose flour, as needed to bind batter

3 eggs

1 cup Greek yogurt

honey

For the toasted almond sugar:

x shy 1 pint

¼ teaspoon ground cardamom

⅓ cup skin-on almonds

⅓ cup sugar

grated zest of 1 lemon

Toast the almonds on a sheet pan in the oven until fragrant and just turning color but not thoroughly brown. Let cool completely.

In the pastry-only bowl of the Robot Coupe, combine the cool nuts with the lemon zest, cardamom, and sugar and grind until fully blended—like sand.

In a large nonstick pan over medium heat, spread out the sugar-almond mixture in one even layer. Allow the sugar to melt and then start to toast—tend it obsessively with your heatproof rubber spatula—until a kind of brittle candy forms. (Take care: This can go from raw to totally burnt in a flash. But it takes almost 10 minutes to start to candy; don’t lose focus and don’t hasten by cranking the flame.) As soon as the candy forms and is amber, turn it out onto a cool tray lined with parchment to immediately stop cooking and cool down.

When it is cool and dry and brittle, run the heavy rolling pin over it a few times to break up into crunchy bits.

For the fritter batter:

Beat the eggs with the sugar and cinnamon. Stir in shredded zucchini and almond flour and blend thoroughly. Add AP flour as needed if too wet.

To pick up:

Use 2-oz. ice cream scoop and drop batter directly into hot fat (350°) on pastry side of deep fryer. 3 not-dainty fritters per order. Pull when puffed and golden, 2 minutes +/−.

Drain in stacked coffee filters.

Whisk yogurt to loosen a little.

To plate:

Casual dollop yogurt in center of shallow bowl.

Fritters nested on it.

Drizzle generously with honey, but from on high, in thin threads.

Sprinkle with toasted almond sugar candy.

Sell with Mastic Fondant in Ice Water.

Black Licorice Granita with Orange Cream

For the black licorice granita:

Yield: 2 pints	x3QTS
1 cup sugar	3c.
2 cups water	6c. h₂o
1 cup black strap molasses	3c.
pure anise extract	anise
pinch of salt	salt
For the orange cream:	x½ batch
zest of 1 orange	zest
1 quart heavy cream	2c.
2 Tablespoons sugar	1 T.

For the black licorice granita:

Boil water and sugar for 10 minutes.

Flavor with molasses and anise and add more/less accordingly—we want uncanny taste of black licorice candy.

Focus the story with one pinch of salt.

Pour into hotel pan and freeze.

Scrape with fork intermittently all day. Be sure to drag up the bottom, where the heavier, denser molasses tends to settle—so we don’t have wan ice on top and cloying ice at the bottom when you portion.

If you set the pan in the freezer and totally forget it for the rest of the day, neglecting to rake the fork through at intervals, it can be easily recovered by grinding big chunks in the processor and refreezing.

For the orange cream:

Combine orange zest, cream, and sugar in quart container with tight-fitting lid and shake well until sugar totally dissolves.

This works better if you grind the zest with the sugar in the spice mill before you combine with the cream.

Steep cream for 24 hours. Strain out zest and whip to order, to soft peak stage. Only whip what you need and keep the rest as backup during service.

To plate:

Spoon granita into short-stemmed glass, pack tightly.

Spoon soft dollop orange cream on top.

Set glass on small saucer.

Fresh Currants in Sugar

Rinse a few stems per order. Gently shake off water drops. Set on serious bed of granulated sugar.

Concord Grapes in Shaved Ice

Rinse grapes. Bury loosely in shaved ice. Garland with fresh bay leaves around the rim.