Mid-Summer Baking Round Up
It has been a very busy couple of weeks for us. Lots of socializing, which has meant lots of desserts. As the go-to dessert maker in the family and someone who talks A LOT about my baking, people now expect baked goods from me. This is a little round-up from just the last 10 days!
First up, I made an icebox cake for a family get-together. I needed a not-chocolate dessert for a gathering that included kids. I had been intrigued by icebox cakes. I was also crunched for time so something that could come together in 15 minutes was attractive to me.
If you are unfamiliar with icebox cakes, they are a layered dessert and instead of actual cake, you use cookies and layer it with other fillings and whipped cream. As it soaks up the whipped cream, the cookies become cake-like. After reading a lot of recipes, I went with a pretty simple berry icebox cake.
It was layered graham crackers, whipped cream, and I used blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries.
Honestly, this was a great summer dessert. It was refreshing and tasty. One of the children absolutely loved it and would have had thirds if allowed to. The other child told me my berries were sour (I think the blackberries were the culprit here), but she ate around them and seemed to like the rest of the cake. There are more in this genre of dessert that I would like to try!
A few nights later, we had friends over for dinner and I made the brown butter fruit crisp again. Except I changed a few things, based on preference or what was available:
I upped the crisp topping by about 10%.
I doubled the cinnamon in the crisp topping
I used blackberries instead of blueberries because that’s what was in my refrigerator
The final result was really good! Peach and blackberry are a great combo. The friend we had over texted me the next day to tell me she was still thinking about the crisp. So, a winner and much better than the plain blueberry one from Father’s Day.
Finally, a friend stayed with us for the 4th of July weekend. I didn’t make any desserts, but I did make two galettes for lunch on Monday. I used Erin McDowell’s parmesan dough recipe, and the filling recipe was basically a guide for me. Sorry, I literally cannot just follow a recipe.
To start with the dough. I was pretty confused, to be honest, about whether or not she used this amount of crust for just one galette. It’s basically twice the amount of dough for a single crust pie. It seems like it would be a gigantic galette. I used it for two galettes and it was perfect. I also used a pastry cutter instead of a food processor.
I also modified her cheese filling slightly. Instead of using Boursin and cream cheese (which I’m sure would have been delicious!) I did just cream cheese and mixed in basil, scallions, garlic, salt and pepper. I spread it over the dough and then layered very thinly sliced tomatoes on one and zucchini on the other.
These baked up perfectly! Galettes are so easy and have a very easy trick to determine if they are done. Just grab the pan and give it a shake. If it doesn’t stick and slides around, it is done. These were so good! I also thought some lightly dressed lettuce or arugula would have been fab on top! Next time.
So, that was ten days of baking. And once again, my Savory Baking project is on hold while I make all the summer desserts. I am making a new-to-me pie this week, and also fair pie is coming up so I will be back soon!!
I hope you are enjoying summer produce and having some good baking (or cooking) adventures!
PS. This isn’t baking, but I made some watermelon puree for watermelon lemonade and I had to share because it is a beautiful color!
