by Julia Child
4) Baking and serving—about 25 minutes at 375 degrees
Bake in middle level of preheated 375-degree oven for about 25 minutes, or until topping has browned nicely and a skewer, plunged through topping, comes out clean. Serve hot, warm, or cold. You may wish to pass lightly whipped cream sweetened with powdered sugar and flavored with rum, or homemade crème fraîche, although no cream or sauce is really necessary.
FLAN AUX PRUNES—CLAFOUTI AUX PRUNES
[Fresh Prune Plums Baked in Custard]
Fresh prune plums are halved, baked with sugar and flavorings until just tender, and then baked again under a blanket of eggs and cream. Simple to do and delicious to eat, the same recipe can be applied to other fruits, canned or fresh, as described at the end of the recipe.
For 4 people
1) Preliminary baking of the fruit
1 pound, or about 1 quart, fresh prune plums, washed, halved, and seeded
A lightly buttered baking dish, large enough to hold them in 1 layer
⅛ tsp cinnamon
½ cup sugar
The grated rind of 1 lemon
1 Tb lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Arrange fruit skin-side down in dish, and sprinkle with the flavorings. Bake in middle level of oven about 20 minutes, or until fruit is just tender but still holds shape. Raise oven heat to 375 degrees for next step.
2) Final baking with custard—20 to 25 minutes at 375 degrees
A lightly buttered 10- to 11-inch baking dish 1½ to 2 inches deep
2 “large” eggs
3 Tb sugar
A mixing bowl and wire whip
2 Tb flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
⅓ cup light or all-purpose cream
Transfer fruit, still skin-side down, to second baking dish; reserve juices. Beat eggs and sugar in bowl to blend them, then beat in the flour, vanilla, and cream. Pour over the fruit.
(*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: Refrigerate if you are not baking immediately.
Bake in upper third of preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until custard has puffed and browned lightly.
3) Sauce and serving
The cooking juices from Step 1, in a small pan
Optional: 2 to 3 Tb Cognac, rum, or kirsch
A serving bowl
Optional: crème Chantilly (lightly whipped cream sweetened with confectioner’s sugar and flavored with Cognac, rum, kirsch, or vanilla)
While the dessert is baking, warm the fruit juices and flavor them with the liqueur if you wish; warm them again just before serving. Serve the flan hot, warm, or tepid, accompanied by the fruit juices and optional crème Chantilly.
Other ideas
Use the same system for canned and frozen fruits, like plums, peaches, or apricots. Thaw, if frozen; drain thoroughly, and halve and seed them if necessary. Give them a preliminary baking of 10 minutes or so with 2 or 3 tablespoons of melted butter, a pinch of cinnamon, drops of lemon juice, and a sprinkling of sugar to enhance their flavor. Then pour on the custard mixture and proceed with the recipe.
POMMES SOUFFLÉES, CALVADOS
[Individual Apple Soufflés in Apples]
This is the attractive kind of recipe that looks much dressier than it is—apples baked in wine, then filled with an apple soufflé mixture and baked again on butter-drenched canapés. For an essentially simple process, the recipe is purposely detailed because you will want to use this way of baking apples with other fillings and toppings, some of which are suggested at the end of the recipe. Ahead-of-time notes follow each step in the process, so that you can do parts of the dessert whenever you have time, and be ready for the final baking several hours in advance of serving.
For 6 people
1) Preliminary cooking of the apples
6 firm, unblemished apples 3¼ to 3½ inches in diameter (such as Golden Delicious, Rome Beauty, York Imperial)
1 lemon, quartered
A 10- to 12-inch flameproof baking dish 3½ inches deep and smeared with 1½ Tb softened butter
½ cup dry white wine or vermouth
⅓ to ½ cup sugar (more if apples seem sour)
½ stick cinnamon
A 10- to 12-inch round of heavily buttered waxed paper
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Wash the apples, then prepare one at a time: shave off bottom of apple so it will stand solidly upright. Slanting your knife down toward the core, cut a cap off top of apple about 2 inches in diameter. Peel, reserving peel and all edible apple bits for Step 2. With grapefruit knife, hollow out apple centers and remove seeds, leaving a ½-inch shell of apple all around sides and bottom. Rub inside and out with cut lemon and place in baking dish. When all apples are done, squeeze remaining lemon juice over them and add lemon pieces to the dish.
Pour the wine around the apples, sprinkle on the sugar, add cinnamon, and bring to simmer on top of stove. Cover with the waxed paper, and set in middle level of preheated oven for about 30 minutes, regulating heat so that liquid never quite simmers. Apples should be tender when pierced with a knife, and ready to eat, but they must keep their shape so that they will stand up to their final cooking. Remove from oven and let cool for at least 10 minutes, waxed paper in place over them.
(*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: May be baked even a day in advance. Remove from refrigerator at least half an hour before final baking, Step 4.
2) The apple purée (soufflé base)
The peel and all edible bits from apple centers
¼ cup water
A heavy-bottomed 2-quart saucepan with cover
1 cup apricot jam pushed through a sieve (3 Tb for now, the rest for later)
A food mill or sieve
3 or more Tb sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tb Calvados, rum, or Cognac
1 egg yolk blended with 3 Tb heavy cream in a small mixing bowl
Optional: drops of red food coloring
While shells are cooking, simmer apple peel and trimmings with water in the covered pan over moderately low heat for about 15 minutes. When tender, purée with 3 tablespoons of the apricot jam through food mill or sieve. Add sugar, vanilla, and spirits; boil down rapidly, stirring constantly until mixture is almost thick enough to hold its shape on a spoon. You should have about ⅔ cup; gradually stir it into bowl with cream and egg yolk. Return to saucepan and stir over moderately high heat until mixture comes almost to the boil and thickens again. Taste, adding more sugar if necessary and drops of red coloring if you think they are needed.
(*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: May be completed a day in advance; film surface with plastic wrap, and refrigerate.
3) Preliminaries to baking the canapés:
About ½ cup clarified butter (melted butter, skimmed; clear liquid spooned off milky residue)
A frying pan
6 rounds of bread 3 inches in diameter and ⅜ inch thick (use homemade-type white bread)
The remaining sieved apricot jam from Step 2
An unbuttered ovenproof serving platter large enough to hold apples easily
The cooked apples
A pastry brush
Film frying pan with ⅛ inch of clarified butter, and set over moderately high heat. When bubbling, add as many bread rounds as will fit easily in one layer, and sauté for a minute or so on each side to brown very lightly, adding a little more butter if needed to keep bread from burning. These are now called canapés; paint one side of each with a coating of apricot jam and set them jam-side up on a platter. One by one, drain the apples, pouring accumulated juices back into baking dish. Paint inside and out with more of the strained apricot jam, and place one apple on each canapé. Dribble over them any remaining butter.
the sauce:
A sieve (or the food mill)
A small saucepan
1 tsp arrowroot blended with 3 Tb Calvados, rum, or Cognac
The remaining apricot jam (about ¼ cup, plus sugar if needed, and a tablespoon or so of butter)
Discard lemon rind and cinnamon stick; strain cont
ents of apple-baking dish into saucepan. Beat in arrowroot mixture and apricot jam; bring to the simmer. Simmer 2 to 3 minutes, until sauce has turned from cloudy to clear, and has thickened lightly. Taste for flavor, adding more sugar and butter if you feel the need.
(*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: Canapés and sauce may be made a day in advance, but do not arrange apples on canapés more than an hour or two before baking.
4) Baking and serving—about 10 minutes at 375 degrees
2 egg whites at room temperature
An egg-white beating bowl and hand-held electric beater or balloon whip
Pinches of salt and cream of tartar
The apple purée from Step 2
A rubber spatula
The platter of apples
Confectioner’s sugar in a small fine-meshed sieve
The sauce, warmed
A warm sauce bowl
About 20 minutes before serving (or as much as an hour in advance) beat egg whites at moderate speed for a minute or two, until foamy; beat in the salt and cream of tartar, and gradually increase beating speed to fast until egg whites form stiff peaks. Stir a spoonful of them into the apple purée to lighten it; delicately fold the rest of the egg whites into the purée with the rubber spatula. Spoon the soufflé mixture into the apple shells, heaping it into a dome. (Invert a large bowl over the platter of apples if you are not baking immediately.)
Bake in middle level of preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until soufflé filling has puffed slightly—it will not puff very much—and begun to brown. Rapidly sprinkle confectioner’s sugar over the apples and bake 2 to 3 minutes more. Serve immediately, accompanied by the sauce, a spoonful of which may be poured over part of each apple as it is served.
Other ideas
Rather than filling the apples with a soufflé mixture, you may boil down and season the apple purée as directed in Step 2, and stir in ⅓ cup dry bread crumbs sautéed in 3 to 4 tablespoons of butter; fill the apples and proceed with the recipe. You may add a handful of raisins soaked first in the rum or Cognac called for. Rather than bread crumbs, you might stir in half a cup of crumbled stale macaroons, which would give an attractive almond flavoring. Finally, having filled the apples with any of these stuffings, you could then cover them spectacularly with a meringue (beaten egg whites and sugar), sprinkle with shaved almonds, and brown in a hot oven, following the method for the poires meringuées, Step 4, in the following recipe.
POIRES MERINGUÉES, AU SABAYON
[Wine-poached Pears Baked in Meringue, Wine-custard Sauce]
This is a simple fruit dessert that looks satisfyingly elegant and complicated. Pears are poached in an aromatic red-wine syrup, the syrup is turned into a sauce, and at serving time the pears are baked in a cloak of meringue sprinkled with almond flakes. Pear-poaching, sauce-making, and even the little toasts the pears sit upon while baking may be done the day before serving.
For 8 pear halves, serving 4 to 8 people
1) Poaching the pears
1 cup sugar
1½ cups young red wine, such as Côtes-du-Rhône or Mountain Red
1½ cups water
An enameled skillet or saucepan 2½ or more inches deep and just large enough to hold pear halves
4 whole cloves
The zests (colored part of peel) of ½ orange and ½ lemon
1 tsp vanilla
4 firm, ripe, unblemished pears
A grapefruit knife
Stir the sugar into the wine and water, bring to the simmer, and when dissolved add the cloves, zests, and vanilla. Simmer for 20 minutes, then remove from heat. One at a time, peel the pears, halve lengthwise, retaining stems, and neatly remove stem lines and cores. Drop each, as done, into the wine syrup. Syrup should barely cover pears: add more liquid and sugar if necessary (⅓ cup sugar per cup of liquid). Bring almost to the simmer, and poach uncovered at just below the simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, until pears are just tender when pierced with a knife. (Maintaining liquid at below the simmer prevents fruit from disintegrating.) Let pears cool in syrup for at least 20 minutes so that they will firm up as well as absorb the sugar and flavorings. (They may remain for several days in the syrup.)
2) The sauce sabayon
2 cups of the pear-poaching syrup
A small saucepan
A 4- to 6-cup enameled or stainless saucepan and a wire whip
3 egg yolks
2 tsp cornstarch
2 Tb cool cooking syrup
A wooden spoon
2 Tb butter
3 to 4 Tb orange liqueur
Rapidly boil down the cooking syrup in a small saucepan until reduced to 1 cup. In the second saucepan beat egg yolks and cornstarch to blend smoothly, then beat in the two tablespoons of cool syrup. In a thin stream of driblets, beat in the hot, reduced syrup. Set over moderate heat; stir slowly and constantly with wooden spoon until mixture thickens enough to coat spoon—do not let it come to the simmer and scramble the egg yolks; however, sauce must thicken. Remove from heat. Beat in the butter, then the orange liqueur. Set aside, or cover and refrigerate when cool.
3) Preparations before cooking—an hour in advance
8 canapés (rectangles of white bread sautéed in butter, Step 3)
A lightly buttered baking and serving dish, large enough to hold canapés easily in 1 layer
Sauté the canapés (if done a day in advance, pack airtight and freeze); arrange in 1 layer in baking dish.
3 egg whites
A clean beating bowl and electric beater
Big pinch each of salt and cream of tartar
½ cup sugar (instant superfine if possible)
¼ tsp vanilla extract
Beat egg whites until foaming, then beat in the salt and cream of tartar, and continue beating until soft peaks are formed. Beat in the sugar by 2-spoonful sprinkles, beating ½ minute between additions. Beat in the vanilla and continue beating for several minutes at high speed until egg whites form stiff, shiny peaks. This is the meringue mixture.
A rack set over a tray
Drain pears hollow-side down on rack.
4) Baking and serving—5 to 7 minutes—oven preheated to 425 degrees
3 Tb sugar
The canapés in their baking dish
The drained poached pear-halves
The sauce sabayon
The meringue mixture
½ cup sliced almonds
⅓ cup confectioner’s sugar in a fine-meshed sieve
A warm bowl for the sauce
(Although pears may be masked with meringue or baked ahead, they are best when assembled and baked at the last moment.) Sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar over each canapé, and place a pear half, hollow-side up, on top. Fill hollow with a teaspoon of sauce sabayon. If necessary, beat the meringue mixture at high speed for a moment until it again forms stiff peaks. Mask each pear half with a large spoonful of meringue. Strew sliced almonds over each and sift on a light sprinkling of confectioner’s sugar. Place in upper third of preheated oven for about 5 minutes, until meringue and almonds have lightly browned. Meanwhile, gently warm the sauce to tepid and turn into warm bowl. Serve pears as soon as possible, passing the sauce separately.
MOUSSE D’ORANGES À L’ANANAS
[Molded Orange Mousse Garnished with Pineapple and Candied Orange Peel]
When you want a beautiful dessert that is also light and as delicious as it is refreshing, this orange Bavarian cream without cream is a perfect answer.
For a 6-cup mold, serving 6 to 8
1) Preliminaries
glazed pineapple—ananas glacé:
A small (8½ ounces) can of pineapple slices, or 4 slices and ½ cup juice
⅓ cup sugar
A small saucepan
A small bowl
¼ cup kirsch
Lay pineapple slices flat on cutting board, and slice in half parallel with board to make 2 rings rather than one; divide each into 16 wedges. Bring sugar to boil in pineapple juice, and when dissolved add the pineapple and boil 5 m
inutes, or until pineapple is beginning to turn a golden, light-caramel color. Drain. Place pineapple in bowl with kirsch, and return juice to pan.
glazed orange peel—zestes d’oranges glacés:
6 or more large, bright, juicy oranges
6 large, rectangular sugar lumps
Waxed paper
A wooden spoon
A 2½-quart stainless or enameled saucepan
Wash and dry oranges. Break sugar lumps in half. Over waxed paper, rub sugar lumps one at a time vigorously against the skin of 2 oranges, until all sides of lumps have absorbed as much oil as possible from the orange skins. Mash the sugar with the spoon and scrape into saucepan.
A vegetable peeler and a sharp chopping knife
A small saucepan with 2 cups water
A small bowl
⅔ cup sugar
½ cup water
The pan of pineapple juice
Remove zests (orange part of peel) from 2 of the other oranges, and cut into julienne strips 1½ inches long and 1⁄16 inch wide. Drop into the pan of water and simmer 15 minutes; drain, rinse in cold water, and squeeze dry in paper towels. Place in small bowl. Stir sugar and water into pineapple juice, swirl over heat until sugar dissolves, then boil rapidly to the thread stage (230 degrees). Stir 2 tablespoons into the orange peel, reserve rest of syrup for the custard.