Fresh Berry Tartlets with Creamy Vanilla Bean Filling - gluten free! (Or not)

You know how sometimes you land upon a recipe that just has some sort of magic combination of ingredients, and it turns into a family favorite that you make over and over again? This is that recipe. I have made this tart every summer since I discovered it, and I've been tinkering with the recipe until I got it just the way I like it. It's probably the most requested recipe I have, so its about time it went up on the 'ol blog, wouldn't you say?

BTW, I generally adapt recipes from other sources, but this crust recipe is all me! The original called for a graham cracker crust, and when I first started making this gluten-free graham crackers were not available (they are now). That's ok though, because I like this crust way better than a the graham cracker crust, and so does everyone else! There just something special about the nutty almond flour (and this crust) that really brings this dessert up to a whole new level.

And of course, you must make the filling. It is not optional. Do not use something else. This filling is THE BEST THING EVER. It makes pastry cream feel like an ugly stepsister crying in the corner. It's like, as good as cheesecake, but with none of the work. I promise, if you make this, you will never want to use pastry cream again (ok, ok, you might use it again, but you will like this better).

Fresh Berry Tartlets with Creamy Vanilla Bean Filling
makes 1 large tart, or 4-5 individual tartlets

I topped these with raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries because that's what was in season, and it looked cute for our 4th of July barbecue, but you can really make these any time of year and use whatever fruit or combination of fruits are fresh and in season. I have made it with peaches and raspberries, cherries, apricots, blackberries, and I bet it would taste great with poached pears, quince, or other fall fruits.

I used to make this as one large tart, but that was always a struggle for me, because as pretty as it looks when you are done making it, it turns into a real mess when you try to cut it up. One I did it as individual tartlets, I was sold: They are just so cute, and they don't fall apart when you slice them into individual portions.

For the Crust
3/4 cup almond flour
1 cup flour (you can use regular flour if gluten is not an issue, or an all purpose gluten-free mix, or yout favorite combination of gluten free flours. For this recipe I use 1/2 a cup sweet rice flour, and 1/2 a cup oat flour)
1 tbs xanthum gum
1/2 a cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar

For the cream cheese vanilla bean filling
8 oz (one stick) cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup heavy cream, room temperature
1 Vanilla Bean, halved and scraped, or 1 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste
1/4 cup white sugar

For the topping
2 cups fresh fruit
optional: warmed jam for especially sour fruits, brushed over the top

1. Make the crust: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together almond flour and other flour(s), xanthum gum, and sugars. Pour melted butter into flour, and mix with a wooden spoon until evenly distributed through the flour. Press into tart shell, and bake 15 - 20 minutes, until golden. Remove from the oven, and cool completely.

2. Make the filling: In a stand mixer, beat cream cheese until soft, 2-3 minutes. Add in vanilla, sugar, and cream. Mix on low until incorporated, then beat on high until cream is light and fluffy. Scrape into cooled tart shell, and top with fruit. If the fruit you have chosen is especially sour, feel free to brush some warmed jam over it. Enjoy!

Creamy Cool Mint and Chocolate Grasshopper Pie - gluten free! Or not.

This pie is so lowbrow, and I mean that in the best way possible. It's not a pretentious pie. It doesn't have season tickets to the opera. It doesn't drive a Mercedes. It doesn't wear Prada. This is just a down home, Walmart shopping, Ford driving, baseball playing, summer pie. If we lived in "real America" instead of the liberal hippie commune we call California (oh, I love you, you liberal hippie commune!), I imagine we might eat pie like this every day.

And not that this pie would ever say so itself, seeing as it's so unpretentious, but it is also delicious. It's cool. It's creamy. It's got a refreshing mint flavor and a crisp chocolate crust. It's kind of amazing. Perfect for like, I don't know, a barbecue? A picnic? A beach party? Sunday dinner? A midnight snack? Any time you feel like a little kitschy? Any old excuse?







This weekend we had a coed baby shower barbecue at our house (and by the way, men should always be invited to baby showers. So! Much! Fun!). I made some cupcakes (not gluten-free), and I thought I would just pull this out of the freezer so I could enjoy some dessert too. Dude. This pie was practically inhaled it went so fast. And the cupcakes? I still have a million of them. And why shouldn't this cake be popular? It's practically no-bake, it's perfect on a hot summer day, it pairs well with barbecue, what's not to love?

Wait, I think it's talking to you. It say "make me already!" I think you better listen.










Creamy Cool Mint and Chocolate Grasshopper Pie - Gluten free! Or not.

Okay, okay, this pie has the great white Satan in it. You know what I'm talking about. Yep, that's right. This pie calls for cool whip. On most days, I tend to sit up on my high horse and talk about how horrible processed food is (because it is horrible, actually), but, well, not today. Life is short, it's ok to live it up with some cool whip every now and then. I'm not suggesting you make cool whip part of your daily bread, but there are some worse sins I can think of. And honestly, the cool whip is seriously yummy. It's summer! Let's enjoy it, shall we?

Also, let's talk about crusts. My crust is gluten free, and is made out of my gluten-free Girl Scout thin mint cookies. HOWEVER, any other gluten-free chocolate cookie will work, and if gluten is not an issue, Oreo's are just dandy. Whatever cookie you choose, you want it to be crisp, like a graham cracker, not soft and chewy.


For the crust
25 gluten-free Girl Scout thin mint cookies, undipped in chocolate, just the cookie (or other types of chocolate cookie).
1/2 cup butter (one stick), melted


For the pie filling
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
8 ounces cool whip, extra creamy, thawed
1 teaspoon peppermint flavoring
1/2 cup sugar
green food coloring




Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put 25 chocolate cookies in a food processor, and process until cookies are broken down into crumbs.




Add 1/2 a cup melted butter, and process until crumbs are moist and begin sticking together. Press into a pie plate, using the bottom of a measuring cup to press in firmly. Cook in preheated oven 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool (I stuck mine in the freezer to hasten the process. You want it to be cold before you put in the filling, or the filling may melt).




In a stand mixer, combine 8 ounces cream cheese...




... and 1/2 cup sugar. Whip on high until sugar is dissolved into cream cheese, and cream cheese is light and fluffy, 5-10 minutes.




Add 1 teaspoon peppermint extract. Mix to combine.




Add 8 ounces cool whip and mix until incorporated.




Add a few drops of food coloring (I used about 5 drops, but how green you want it is really a matter of preference). Mix thoroughly.




Filling with be firm but soft. Scrape filling into prepared crust, spreading evenly. Refridgerate at least 2 hours so it can firm up. Alternatively, pie can be frozen.




enjoy!

Raspberry Créme Fraiche Tart • Gluten Free! or Not

Today, I feel lazy. I am laying on the couch under and open window, curtains fluttering in the breeze, radio humming dreamily. The breeze is gently blowing in from the ocean, baby James is playing on his play mat, and all I want to do is lay here, on a beautiful summer day, for the rest of my life. I want to lay here and read poetry and take naps and drink iced tea with spiced simple syrup all day long. And yet, just being here, relaxing, makes me feel so guilty!

Ever since that day, four months ago, when my OB told me to go strait to the hospital because my blood pressure was through the roof, I have been living in a constant state of emergency. Preeclampsia! Near death experience! emergency c-section! Premie newborn! Baby won't breast-feed! Marathon pumping! Mother Killer colic! Up all night! Post-partum depression! Silent Reflux disease! Milk protein allergy! I've been in survivor mode for the past 4 months and I haven't even had a second to catch my breath.

Until now.



If you are new here, baby James has gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD), which is fancy for he spits up all the time and it's really painful and it makes him cry. So we finally got the baby's meds adjusted correctly, and he is doing fantastic. No more pain, no more tears: he is happy and healthy and developing right on track. And now... I feel lost. I sit on the couch all day, waiting for something to go wrong, waiting for the baby to have some new emergency... but he's ok. I've been so focused on this baby, he has needed all my focus and energy up to this point, that I can't even remember what I did before this baby came along. Do I have interests beyond the frequency and color of infant bowel movements? I forget. Do I enjoy other activities beside feeding, rocking, swaddling, burping, and attending to the needs of a miniature person? I can't remember. Um, wasn't I interested in like, literature or grad-school or something? Beats me.

So we've been trying to get back to a more relaxed pace of life. Which bring us to this tart. Doesn't it look scrumptious? I loooooove raspberries. I think I might have a big fat schoolgirl crush on them. If I had a locker, I would definitely have their picture pinned up. Right next to Brad Pitt. They are about equally hot. We wait all year for them (the raspberries that is, not Brad Pitt) - so ripe and red and delicious! And this particular tart is a fabulous showcase for summer's first ripe red berries. Tonight we are taking this tart to a jazz concert in the park as part of a picnic. It should be fun! And hopefully, relaxing. Because the past 4 months? They've been really hard. I think we are about due for a break.




Raspberry Créme Fraiche Tart • Gluten free! Or not.

The "crust" for this tart is quite different from anything I have ever had before - it's light and spongy, almost like a dense, moist cake. You can make it gluten-free by mixing equal parts brown rice flour, sweet rice flour, and quinoa flour together (thought I am curious about using almond flour. I bet it would be great!) or if gluten is not an issue, you can just use all-purpose flour. The original recipe called for all-purpose flour, so I am sure it's tasty too!


Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup quinoa flour
1/3 cup brown rice flour
1/3 cup sweet rice flour
(or 1 cup all purpose flour if gluten is not an issue)
3/4 cup créme fraiche (or sour cream is créme fraiche is not available in your area)
2 cups fresh raspberries (about 12 oz)
powdered sugar
pinch salt

method


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a stand mixer, combine 1/2 cup butter (one stick)...



... with 1/2 cup sugar...



...and a pinch of salt.



Beat the sugar, butter, and salt on high until butter is light a fluffy and pale in color.



Add 3 eggs from happy, free-range chickens...



...and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.



Combine in the bowl, if you haven't already and beat until eggs are incorporated...



...and it looks like this. It might look a bit "curdled" for a while, as it is mixing. Just keep beating! It will come together eventually.



To the egg/butter/sugar mixture, add 1/3 cup quinoa flour...



... and 1/2 cup sweet rice flour...



...and 1/3 brown rice flour (However, if you don't need to worry about gluten just go ahead and use 1 cup all purpose flour).



Mix together on low until flour is just incorporated. Dough will be very soft an almost batter-like.



Put aluminum foil around the bottom of a tart pan to prevent leaks. Spread around the bottom of the tart pan...



...and up the sides. Now for the creamy créme fraiche filling!



Get 1/4 cup sugar...



...one eggs (from a happy chicken - no emo eggs here)...



... 1/2 teaspoon vanilla...



... and 3/4 cup créme fraiche...



... and combine in a bowl. Mix it up real good.



Add to the tart shell...



...and smooth with a spatula... until it's smooth.



Top with 2 cups raspberries.



Sprinkle top of tart with 2 tablespoons sugar.



Once tart has been sprinkled, bake in preheated oven for 50-60 minutes, until edges are golden and tart is firm in the middle. Remove from the oven and let cool. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Enjoy!

Peach Pie Perfection: Fresh Peach Pie with Créme Fraiche and Streusal

Every now and then, a recipe comes along that is so out of this world that it changes your life FOREVER. Once you were a sane and rational person, going about your usual business, and now you are reduced to using superlatives, all caps, and an excessive amount of punctuation: (BEST. PIE. EVER.) It's so good you have to shout it from the roof tops. It's so good, it may inspire marriage proposals. This pie is so good... it's dangerous. It could change your life.

All year I look forward to peach season. Peach season! Two of the most beautiful words in the English language. I've been making this pie every summer for years now. To me, it's the definition of summer goodness. Actually, peaches are just delicious and amazing. There just isn't much better in life than an breezy July afternoon, sitting out on the back patio, soft luscious peach in hand, juices running down your arm as you bite into it. That, my friends, is a perfect summer day. Throw in a glass of rosé, and you just might have a little foretaste of heaven.

But back to the pie. Feeling weak in the knees yet?








Fresh Peach Pie with Créme Fraiche and Streusal
adapted from Martha Stewart

Ok people, let's talk about pie crusts. Pie crust without gluten is a little tricky. You see, the way to get a flaky, crispy, tender pie crust is ... gluten. I have yet to find a recipe that I love, love, love, but try this. It's pretty decent.

And if you will be partaking of gluten today? Well, you've got it easy. Here is my favorite pate sucrée recipe from back in the day before I found out about my diet restriction. It's delicious. And easy too.


Ingredients
1 pie crust, prebaked (see above for recipes)

For the Filling
2 lbs (5-6 medium) yellow peaches, ripe (but not over-ripe) and in season
2 tablespoons sugar
pinch of salt
5 tablspoons créme fraiche (or sour cream in a pinch)

For the Streusal
1/4 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons quinoa flour (or all-purpose flour)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 cup cold butter, cut into pieces



Method:


1. Prepare your crust. Set aside. (Why yes! That is a breast pump horn in the background. Sorry, this is the only picture you get). Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2, Makes the streusal. Mix together powdered sugar, quinoa flour, baking powder, and salt. Using a fork, a pastry cutter, or your fingers, work cold butter into flour until pea sized chunks form. Store in fridge until ready for use.

3. Prepare peaches: pit and slice peaches. Toss in a medium bowl with sugar and salt.

4. Assemble the pie


Spread 2 tablespoons créme fraiche on the bottom of the crust. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the streusal.



Top with peaches (you can arrange them neatly or toss them in higledy piggledy. They'll taste good either way. Really. I promise.) Top with the other 3 tablespoons of créme fraiche...



and sprinkle with the remaining streusal.

5. Cook the pie in preheated oven for about 50 minutes, until the streusal is golden brown and the creme fraiche is bubbly. Let cool before serving, if you can wait. Plop a big scoop of vanilla icecream next to pie slice. Enjoy!