Fruit | [ No Recipes ]

As I polished off some leftovers from last night’s Tacos Al Pastor (which I added ramps to tonight), I was hit with a wicked craving for dessert. Doing a survey of the fruit bowl and fridge, all I could find was a quarter of a pineapple and some rhubarb. Clafoutis?…. nah, too pedestrian… I need something more… fiery!

Flambé is one of those showboaty table-side dishes that’s kind of gone the way of table prepped caesar salad and steak tartare. If you thought it was fun watching a dude in a tux prepare it for you, let me assure you that it’s MUCH more satisfying doing it yourself. I mean come on… sugar, butter, alcohol and FIRE. What’s not to love here?

This is one of those desserts that I’ll make with just about anything (corn flambé anyone?). The alcohol butter and sugar make a delightfully dark brown caramel sauce that’s hard to beat on vanilla ice cream.

Drooling yet? Well you’re gonna have to hold your horses ’cause we’ve been tagged with the “You Make My Day Award” by Parsnips Aplenty, who has an awesome blog you should check out. I also got tagged for the Top 10 Pictures meme a while back by Diva of The Sugar Bar who also has a fine blog I’d recommend (sorry it took me so long to mention this).

On the topic of memes I’ve been mulling over this one, and while it might make me unpopular, I honestly feel like they’re a bit like those Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe chain letters. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s awesome that someone thought my blog worthy of being tagged, but I guess I just take issue with the fundamentals of memes. In the future if anyone tags me, I’ll reciprocate the linklove, but I’ll be “that guy” that doesn’t propagate the meme by passing it on to others.

Okay back to the regularly scheduled programming. Here’s a shot of the butter and sugar melting.

What’s that? Rum is flammable?!

Hit the jump for the money shots…
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While strawberries and rhubarb haven’t started showing up at the green market yet, they were being prominently displayed at Wholefoods today so I went ahead and bought some. To my surprise, the strawberries where incredibly sweet and flavorful and I had to stop myself from eating all of them so I could make this crostata.

This is one of my favourite ways of preparing fruit from all seasons. It’s so simple to prepare and really allows the fruit to shine. The addition of a spice or two adds a bit of character without covering up anything. If I’m using apples I’ll add some nutmeg and cinnamon, for blackberries I might add a smidge of lemon zest. But for strawberries, I’m enamored with the the fresh floral aroma of lavender.

As I was making the dough, I accidentally added twice the water I was supposed. Rather than throw it out, I just added some baking powder, and rolled it in crystalized sugar and turned them into lavender “cookies”. I wasn’t sure what would come out of the oven, but they turned out to be somewhere between a biscuit and a cookie. I think they’d actually be quite good with some chopped up fresh strawberries and whipped cream.
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