Tag Archives: Smitten Kitchen

Raspberry Lemon Bars

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Continuing my current fascination with layers and my own tendency toward unnecessary complication, this week I decided to fix what ain’t broken. I love the combination of raspberry and lemon (incidentally, these are the only two flavors that I allow to come in contact with cheesecake, which is saying something), so I wondered how the classic lemon bar would fare if I required it to carry a layer of tart ruby compote between the crust and the curd.

I decided to let myself off the hook on these in terms of recipe development – there are so many excellent lemon bar recipes out there that I saw no need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, if my objective was just to add some fancy rims. I went with Deb’s whole lemon bars from her first cookbook, a riff on this tart. I like that they use the whole lemon (less waste! more flavor!), I love that they use a food processor for both components, and I’ve been pleased enough with the result on previous baking missions that this time I only adjusted her filling requirements by jamming in yet more citrus.

Speaking of jam, if you wanted to make your life easier for the raspberry component you could probably just empty a few tablespoons of preserves over the parbaked crust and wind up with something completely satisfactory. I opted instead for a defrosted bag of frozen berries – it’s winter and grocery store selections are less than desirable for a number of reasons – and cooked them down with a few tablespoons of sugar. You could go fresh too if you wanted; I include estimates below.

We found these delightful. And we keep on finding them to be so. In fact, every time I go back to the cutting board where I left them, I find fewer there. At first I thought the raspberries overpowered the lemon, but after my … well… we’ll call it my nth sample, I’ve decided there’s a nice harmony between the different sources of tartness. I do think the lemon takes a slight backseat, so I’m also including measurements here for a version I think you’ll find less raspberry-forward.

One note: to get that gorgeous, traditional, snowy-topped powdered sugar garnish, you must wait for these bars to cool completely. If you sprinkle it on when the bars are even slightly warm, the powdered sugar melts frustratingly into the lemon layer and all but disappears.

Raspberry Lemon Bars
Adapted very lightly from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook
Makes 16 squares of about 1½ inches
A little over an hour, plus cooling time of at least 30-40 minutes
For crust:
1 cup all-purpose flour
⅓ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
For raspberry compote:
12 ounces frozen or fresh raspberries, for a raspberry-forward layer
6 ounces frozen or fresh raspberries, for more subtle raspberry presence
1-2 tablespoons sugar
For lemon filling:
2 medium lemons
1⅓ cups sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
Powdered sugar, to finish

 

  • Preheat the oven to 350 with a rack in the middle. Cut two pieces of parchment paper slightly larger than an 8-inch baking dish and arrange them perpendicular to one another across the bottom and up the sides. You’ll use these as a sling to remove the bars from the pan later. Lightly grease for extra insurance.
  • Add the raspberries and 1-2 tablespoons sugar to a small pot. Cook over medium to medium-low heat until they have expelled some juice and thickened slightly. Alternatively, if you are using fresh raspberries and want them less processed, toss them with the sugar, crush them very gently with the tines of a fork, and set them aside for a few minutes.
  • While the raspberries cook, make the crust: blend the flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor by pulsing 3-4 times for 1-second intervals. Add the butter and continue this 1-second pulsing routine until the crust just starts to come together – it will still be powdery, but hold its shape if pinched between your thumb and forefinger.
  • Dump the crust crumbs into the prepared baking dish and use your fingers or the bottom of a cup measure to press them firmly across the bottom and about ½ inch up the sides. Prick the dough all over with a fork, then stow in the preheated 350F oven for 20-25 minutes, until it is lightly browned. If any bubbles appear, gently prick them with a fork. Leave the oven on.
  • While the crust bakes, make the lemon filling: cut the lemons in half and assess the pith (the white layer below the skin). If it is more than about ¼ inch thick, remove the skin and pith from one of the lemons, leaving only the flesh. If it is less than ¼ inch thick, keep it all. Cut the lemons into slices and remove any seeds. Then, add the lemon slices – skin and all! – and the sugar into the same food processor bowl you used for the crust (you don’t even need to wash it out), and process on high until the lemon is thoroughly pureed – about 2 minutes.
  • Add the butter chunks to the pureed lemon and process again until the butter is well integrated. Add the eggs, cornstarch, and salt and pulse in 1-second intervals until the mixture is well combined. Don’t forget to scrape the sides of the processor bowl down once or twice with a spatula to ensure an even mixture.
  • To assemble, pour and scrape the raspberry puree over the parbaked crust, using a spatula or the back of a large spoon to spread it evenly across the hot crust. Next, pour and scrape the lemon filling over the raspberry puree. I was worried about the fillings bleeding into each other, but found the lemon stayed on top just fine provided I was pouring from a very low height.
  • Bake the bars for 35-40 minutes, until the filling is set and the top is lightly browned; you are looking for only a slight jiggle when you move the pan. The top may look a touch browner than you wanted – don’t worry. Powdered sugar covers that right up.
  • Remove the pan from the oven and let it cool completely, either on a rack or in the refrigerator.* Gently use the parchment sling to remove the entire square to a cutting board. Trim off the edges, if desired (I like this for neatness and consistency), then slice into 16 squares. If the knife is pulling at the top layer, clean it in between slices by dipping it into a glass of very hot water and then wipe away the residue. Sprinkle gratuitously with powdered sugar, then serve.

* Cooling completely is important: if you add the powdered sugar garnish when the bars are even a tiny bit warm, it will melt frustratingly into the lemon filling layer and disappear.

 

Dried Fruit and Ginger Scones

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Food Blog April 2013-1194

This month’s archive makes it look like I’m harboring a bit of a sweet tooth.  Nothing wrong with that, necessarily, but I should tell you this week’s entry is actually at N.’s (indirect) request.  A month or two ago, my beloved aunt sent me some specialty King Arthur flour, and along with the packages of semolina and European style AP blend came a catalog.  Naturally, this has become my bedtime reading (what, you don’t read cookbooks and kitchen magazines in bed?), and on Monday night as I dawdled longingly over a blurb about Double Devon Cream, N. surfaced from internet-land and glanced at the facing page.  “That,” he said, and pointed at a photograph of some cranberry orange scones.  “You want scones?”  A silly question, apparently.  “That.”  So here they are.

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I did some research (i.e. food blogs and recipe comparisons from the other cookbooks stacked on my nightstand) and found, as usual, that Deb has all the answers.  Seriously, is there anything the woman hasn’t made?  I adore you, Deb, but really – a person can only repress the green-eyed monster for so long…   This adapts her recipe for “Creamy, Dreamy Scones,” which she got from the America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook.  I’ve used a combination of cake flour and all purpose flour for a lighter texture, allowed turbinado sugar to stand in for the regular sugar, and replaced some (okay, most) of the cream with whole milk, because I lost my mind this week and, forgetting the intended use of that little container, dumped most of it into an unholy-but-oh-so-heavenly conglomeration of chard, bacon, and bourbon.

These scones take advantage of the bags and bags of dried fruit that inevitably collect in my pantry.  You could probably add other flavors as well, but I thought apples and cranberries, and the candied ginger I’ve been obsessed with for at least a year now, would play well together.  Apricots would probably be beautiful too (unless you are, like one of my family members who shall remain nameless to protect familial harmony, freaked out by dried apricots because they apparently bear an uncomfortable resemblance to mouse ears).

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Scones come together much like biscuits: whisk the dry ingredients, cut in the butter, stir the milk/cream/buttermilk and flavor additions in with a fork.  But then, and this is where things can go awry, you have to pat it into a circle and either punch out rounds with a biscuit cutter, or slice the whole thing into triangles.  I chose the latter.

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This dough is, if we’re honest with each other, an almost unmanageably sticky mess.  Resist the temptation to mix more flour into the dough, because the more flour you add, the less tender the finished scones will be.  But do be prepared to sprinkle flour over everything it will come in contact with.  I used a floured pizza cutter to slice it into eight pieces, which tore up edges and corners even while the dough clung fiercely to the board below.

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A bench scraper tool is really helpful for transferring your scones to their cooking vessel – a parchment lined baking sheet would be fine, but I used my brand new enameled pizza stone because I’m so jazzed about it.  This, because I preheated it along with the oven, made the scones sizzle as I levered each one onto its surface, and rather than sticking (which I was dreading, since I realized only after they’d been in the oven for five minutes that I hadn’t greased or floured the cooking surface AT ALL), produced a crisp bottom crust.

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I left my offering on the pizza stone to cool while I took the dog for a walk, and returned to find it had been accepted.

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An hour or so later, it had been accepted again.

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These are best on the first day, but will keep acceptably for two or three days if they are well wrapped in aluminum foil and stored at room temperature.  Chances are – if your family is anything like mine – this short storage period won’t be an issue.  Still warm, these make perfect hand-held afternoon pick-me-ups (the ginger really zings you out of the 3 o’clock slump), but if you want to go the extra mile, I recommend slicing them in half so you have two triangles, stuffing them with Greek yogurt and a decadent ooze of local honey, and attacking with a fork for breakfast.

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Apple Cranberry Ginger Scones

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, who used America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook. 

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup cake flour

1 TB baking powder

4 TB coarse sugar, divided (I used turbinado because that’s what was in my baking cupboard)

½ tsp salt

5 TB butter, cut into cubes

¼ each chopped dried apples, chopped dried cranberries, and chopped candied ginger

¼ cup heavy cream

¾ cup whole milk

  • Position a rack in the middle of your oven and preheat to 425F.  If you will be baking on a pizza stone, put it in the oven to preheat as well.  If you will be using a cookie sheet, line it with parchment paper and set it aside.
  • Whisk together the flours, baking powder, 3 TB of the sugar, and salt in a medium bowl.
  • Cut in the butter using a pastry blender, two knives, or your fingers, until the largest chunks of butter are the size of small peas (sidenote: “peas” seems the universal size for butter chunks – why is that?  Is there no other pea-sized object so regular and recognizable in size that we could call upon?  Ball-bearings?  Corn kernels?  Canine teeth?).
  • Pour in the cream and milk (or just use all cream, if you have it) and mix it around with a fork until an evenly hydrated, extremely sticky dough forms.
  • Add the fruits and mix again until evenly distributed (you may have to work a bit to break up the ginger pieces).
  • Dump the sticky mass out onto a well-floured board.  Sprinkle a little flour on top as well, then pat the dough out into a circle about 1-inch thick.  Try not to add too much flour, lest they become dense and tough.
  • Dip a pizza cutter or other thin, sharp knife into flour, then cut the circle into 8 equal sized pieces.  You may need to scrape off and re-flour your slicing instrument between slices.
  • Using a bench scraper, a thin spatula, or (if you are brave) your hands, relocate your 8 scones to your prepared baking vessel, spacing them a half inch or so apart (they will puff and rise a little bit, but not tremendously).  Sprinkle the tops with the remaining 1 TB of sugar.
  • Bake for 13-15 minutes, or until lightly golden on top and cooked through.
  • Cool at least 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack.  Eat warm or cool.