Cookie Carnival: Blackberry Almond Bars

Look! It's a carnival! And cookies are involved! Probably why it is called a Cookie Carnival!

Yes. I have an incredible grasp of the obvious and I am a total dork - a double threat! Strangely, I am fine with that.

Lovely Kate at The Clean Plate Club chose a bar cookie from Williams-Sonoma this time around and I have to say, I was intrigued.

What you see before you are Blackberry Almond Bars. I was intrigued because (1) I love lemon bars and this is a similar idea and (2) I don't really love blackberries because of the seeds - which are gone here. So, what would stop me from trying somerhing new and different to me? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Now, I may be the only one who has never heard of making curd out of something other than a citrus (lemon, orange and lime being the main ones I've heard of), but that was the main reason this recipe caught my attention. Maybe I would have found out or thought of it eventually (ok, probably not) but the idea of making blackberry curd was just too cool to pass up.

The crust is a simple shortbread crust (but with some extra style and oomph as I would expect from WS) that has toasted, ground almonds (yum!). Simply bake that, remove from oven, pour slightly cooled curd on and bake, just like lemon bars.

The finished bars were cute, classy, tart and seriously yummy. I'm pretty sure the shortbread base will become a go-to recipe for me and now I feel like there are whole new realms of curdy (so not a word, I'm sure) goodness opened up to me.

The only fiddling I actually did (for once) was to line the pan with buttered foil for easy removal and cutting, and I added a bit of almond extract to the curd just carry over the almond flavor from the crust. Oh, and you'll notice that the recipe calls for a chinois and though I know what that is, I don't happen to have one. I just used a fine mesh strainer and the back of a spoon.

You should definitely give these a try - how can you resist how cute they are!?

BLACKBERRY ALMOND BARS
(Williams-Sonoma)

INGREDIENTS:

For the shortbread:
12 Tbs. (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup ground toasted almonds
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. salt

For the blackberry curd:
2 pints blackberries
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 tsp. pure almond extract (optional)

Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat an oven to 350°F. Lightly butter a 9-by-13-by-2-inch cake pan (or line with foil and butter the foil).

To make the shortbread, in the bowl of a food processor, combine the butter, flour, almonds, granulated sugar and salt and process until small lumps form. Sprinkle the mixture into the prepared pan and press evenly into the bottom. Bake until the shortbread is golden, about 20 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack. Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F.

Meanwhile, make the blackberry curd: In a food processor or blender, puree the blackberries until smooth. Pass the puree through a chinois set over a bowl, using a pestle to press on the solids and extract as much juice as possible; discard the solids. You should have about 3/4 cup juice.

In the top pan of a double boiler or in a nonreactive saucepan, whisk together the eggs and granulated sugar until blended. Then whisk in the blackberry juice, salt and lemon juice. Set the top pan over but not touching simmering water in the bottom pan, or set the saucepan over medium-low heat. (If using a saucepan, take care not to heat the mixture too quickly.) Cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spatula or spoon, until the mixture is warmed through, 1 to 2 minutes.

Begin adding the butter a little at a time, stirring each addition until blended before adding more. Continue cooking, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom of the pan, until a finger drawn across the back of the spatula leaves a path, 8 to 10 minutes more. Immediately remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the almond extract, if using. Pass the curd through the chinois set over a bowl and let stand for 10 minutes.

Whisk to blend, then pour the curd over the shortbread, spreading it evenly to the edges.
Bake until the curd is set, about 30 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool completely. Cut into individual bars, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Dust the bars with confectioners’ sugar before serving.

Makes 20 bars (or 40 1-inch squares).

TWD: Cream Puff Ring

I grew up with a lot of cream puffs around our house. My mom is a choux queen to this day. They are almost always filled puffs in the freezer waiting to be devoured, so because of that, I was pretty comfortable making this week's recipe chosen by Caroline of A Consuming Passion. Lucky for me! I decided to try making the ring since in all our cream puffery (yeah, probably not an actual word) growing up I had never made that shape. For whatever reason, I just wasn't excited about mint. I made the ring though, and still just couldn't decide what to fill it with.

I decided to just go with what I had on hand - white chocolate and blackberries. The combination was beautiful and light. For the white chocolate I used the White Chocolate Whipped Cream recipe at the back of The Book. I decided to keep things light with just a bit of melted white chocolate on top as well.

Make sure to check out what the rest of the Dorie-nators were up to this week!

Also, don't forget to head on over to the Great American Bake Sale being hosted by the Tuesdays with Dorie Crew, lead by our fearless leader Laurie over at Quirky Cupcake to see how you can help end childhood hunger in America!

Get The Book!

AYE: Go Local! Blackberry Peach Clafoutis

Yes, I know, another clafoutis. It is becoming a bit of a new obsession around our house. What can I say? Is it because it is A) Delicious, B) Easy, C) Versatile, D) All of the Above. Yup, you guessed it. The answer is "D" - all of the above. Seriously, what's not to love. You can put just about anything in it you want, be traditional, or not. I think that next I want to try a savory version, but I promise that in the future, I will group any more clafoutis posts together before this becomes the All Clafoutis, All the Time Blog!

So, the reason I'm posting this one so quickly on the tail end of my previous posts is two-fold. One, is that if you haven't gone and drooled over the incredible round-up of clafoutis on Bron's site right now for the Hay Hay It's Donna Day - #19 Clafoutis Edition, then you need to. You can look through all the amazing entries from many lovely bloggers and even email a vote for your favorite to Bron before May 9th. If, by chance, you aren't familiar with this wonderful event - well, then you should be! This event was created by the so lovely Barbara of winosandfoodies. It was the first food blogging event I participated in and it has been such fun to participate every month.

As I mentioned, Bron Marshall was the host (again) for this last round and now, in case you didn't hear, Bron is adopting the HHDD Event in the future as requested by Barbara. You can read more about that here and here.

The second reason you are getting another one is that because Mrs. W and I hosted the Art You Eat #3 Event this past month with a theme of Go Local! to help celebrate Earth Day. We chose to concentrate on not only sustainability, but the use of local produce and other products. The point was to become more aware of where our food comes from and to try to focus on "local" (within 7 to 8 hours away) products.

For me, that ended up being Tuesday morning's breakfast of a Blackberry Peach Clafoutis. The blackberries are leftovers frozen from last summer's farmers markets and the peaches come from local growers nearby as well. I bottled the peaches last summer when and the eggs and flour both came from a local farm and mill, respectively. The milk and butter also come from a local dairy. I also used dark brown sugar, which of course, is not local, but the point is to use as much local as possible. So, while my ingredients were not "fresh" I wanted to go that route to show that you can preserve items that you use yourself and control what goes into it and have local accessibility more.

For anyone in the Salt Lake City area, just an FYI that the Live Green - Downtown Sustainability Festival is coming up next Saturday (May 10th). It looks like it should be interesting, educational and fun.

So, on to the recipe. Make sure you check out the Art You Eat blog for the round-up of this event and vote for your favorite.

Blackberry Peach Clafoutis
1 cup blackberries (fresh or if using frozen, do not thaw)
1/2 cup canned peaches (or fresh) cut into small bite size pieces
1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons sugar
300 ml whole milk
3 large eggs
pinch of salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons butter

Preheat two 6-inch cast iron skillets in a 375 degree F oven on a baking sheet. In the meantime, whisk together the dark brown sugar, milk, eggs, and pinch of salt together in a pourable bowl or pitcher. When they are well combined and the sugar is fairly dissolved whisk in the flour.

Remove the skillets from the oven and melt 1 Tablespoon each of butter in the hot pans. Once the butter has melted, distribute the blackberries and peaches evenly between the two pans. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of sugar in each pan over the fruit. Pour equal amounts of batter into each pan over the fruit.

Place the pans on their baking sheet back into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and golden. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes before serving (can also be served at room temperature).

Enjoy!