Blackberry Peach Crostata

Loosely based on this Barefoot Contessa recipe and featuring blackberries I found growing behind our garden shed!

Ricotta Tart with Dried Fruit Compote

Steven and I had fantastic date night in Boston's North End a couple weeks ago to celebrate my 30th (!!!) birthday. After a cozy dinner at my favorite Hanover Street restaurant, we stopped for gelati, and after that grabbed some sweet treats from Modern Pastry to bring home. (Yes, we were going full tilt. I hadn't been to the North End in ages!)

At the bakery, Steven was a lucky ducky and managed to get the second to last piece of one of his favorite North End staples, ricotta pie. All of his ooohing and aaahing got me thinking...why not try and make it at home?

Alas, before I came across a recipe for a traditional ricotta pie, I was distracted by this ricotta tart recipe from Epicurious.

The tart itself was super yummy (though the inclusion of cream cheese in the recipe made the texture a little more "cheesecake" than "ricotta tart") and while I appreciated the dried fruit compote, Steven did not love the wine flavor nor the seeds. So, being the clever hubby that he is, he decided to forgo the compote and opted for butterscotch caramel sauce instead. (As in, the one intended for ice cream sundaes.)

Call me a plebeian...but it did taste even better. :)

Banana Bread Meets a Heavy Dose of Chocolate

Few recipes carry the banner of resource management as effectively as banana bread. I'm always shocked when I peel those completely unappealing brown bananas and find still-perfect banana flesh. And to think I almost threw you away.

I used this banana bread recipe, which is a complete deviation from the banana bread (or more often, zucchini bread) that I grew up with. No cinnamon or related spices, no nuts, no vanilla...but featuring lots of chocolate chips.

So it's basically chocolate chip bread with mashed bananas.

Nothing groundbreaking here, but a great way to transform those past-their-prime bananas into something you WANT to eat. This loaf didn't even last a whole day in our house...

New Blog Obsession: Tartelette

Have you seen the movie Julie & Julia, in which blogger Julie Powell, apparently rather bored with her life, endeavors to work her way through all 524 recipes in Julia Child's first cookbook? Well, if I had to choose a similar challenge for myself, I would probably choose to work my way through the recipe index of my new favorite blog, Tartelette.

I am seriously smitten with the recipes, the photos, the desserts...

like S'mores Doughnuts (*omg, drool*):

Candy cane macarons:

and Goat cheese and fresh berry tarts:

That's just a glimpse of all the goodness going on over at Tartelette. Head on over if you're in need of culinary inspiration...so many beautiful things!

*Special thanks to Helene for allowing me to use images from her gorgeous blog*

Macarons

I'll admit that when I saw that the macaron had become the new hot trend in baking (I even heard it referred to as "the next cupcake"), I was rather bummed. Not because I don't care for them...oh, no no no no no, couldn't be further from the truth...but because I myself had only just discovered them during our girl trip to Paris in 2009, and I had filed the experience under that wonderful category in my brain labeled "one of a kind fantastic experience only had while discovering a new place, never to be experienced again, unless I make it back there...but, *sigh*, we'll always have Paris..."

So, as I said, I was a little bummed when I saw every blogger and etsy seller and their grandmothers and their dogs making them like they were chocolate chip cookies.

But then I thought, what the hell...if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

So here you go...Raspberry Macarons and Vanilla Maple Macarons:

The raspberry macarons are filled with a raspberry mascarpone cream, while the vanilla maple macarons are filled with maple cream. Delicious!

Some time ago, I had come across a very detailed step-by-step guide to making macarons on a fantastic food blog called Food Nouveau and saved the link. Thank God that blogger is infatuated enough with the delicate little treats to write such an exhaustive instructional post...because they are a little tricky. I was most worried about deflating the egg whites (which was not a problem) and under/over cooking them, which turned out to be a legitimate concern. (I had to lower my oven temp to 260F after the first set of cookies suffered cracked tops.)

But as you can see, they did come out rather nicely, and I'm really happy about adding macarons to my repertoire, trendy or not. (And I'm even happier about getting to eat them!;)

Honey-Glazed Peach Tart with Mascarpone Cream

I had a hankering for peaches, and since I won't even bother with grocery store peaches anymore (I've been disappointed by those deceiving, desiccated impostors too many times), I trucked on down to the farmers' market for some REAL peaches. Ahhhhh, fuzzy sun-ripened goodness.

One serving of summer, coming right up.

Recipe here.