Honey Baked Custard with Caramelized Apples

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Behave so the aroma of your actions may 

enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere. 

- Henry David Thoreau

How many plates of apples and honey do I remember ! Flimsy paper plates, too fragile to hold the weight of all of those slices of apples. Sitting in the classrooms behind the synagogue on those chilly folding metal chairs, we would pass around that paper plate, balance it on one small hand while choosing one slick slice of apple, dip it in the golden gooey honey and proffer the plate to our neighbor. Concentrated on the paper plate as we were, ever-fearful that it would tip and flop over, visions of apples tumbling to the floor, the honey perched on the tip of our own slice would slither down our fingers, leaving a sweet sticky remembrance of this special New Year treat. Apple slices eaten, fingers licked, we would listen as our teacher explained the significance of the sweet apples and honey.

How many years of High Holiday services at the synagogue do I remember? Sitting between our parents in the Temple for the first part of the service then spending the rest of the morning in the tiny stretch of classrooms in the back for Children’s Services. The clunky old plastic accordion walls which separated the space into individual classrooms would be pushed back to create one long open room. A shortened religious service dotted with songs and stories, followed by games would be our welcome into the New Year. Folding tables would be set up, laden with a cold buffet, bagels and lox, tuna salad and cold drinks, cakes and cookies. We would each fill one of those thin paper plate and snuggle into a chilly metal chair and happily dig in. Then the apples and honey, slippery apple slices surrounding sticky puddles of fragrant honey amid shouts of L’Shanah Tova! Happy New Year!

Little brother....

It is tradition to welcome the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, with round, sweet foods which represent the wish for a round, sweet year to follow. The customary holiday Challah, a long braided loaf, is twisted into a circle, a round loaf for Rosh Hashanah. Already slightly sweet, sometimes made even more festive by the addition of ground almonds or plump raisins, slices of Challah will be passed around, chunks torn off and then dipped, yes, that’s right, into honey. We eat new fruits as well, fruits of the approaching season that we haven’t yet tasted, such as the pomegranate, in order to thank God for bringing us to this new season. And fish, the symbol of fertility and abundance, all things wished for the coming year. And apples, of course. Apples and honey to be eaten together as we pray for a round year sweet from beginning to end and on and on, a never-ending circle.

Honey and apples are, of course, the most well known traditional foods eaten on the Jewish New Year and not only eaten as is. They are baked into cakes, honey cakes and apple cakes galore – everyone seems to have his or her own family recipe! Yet honey, apples and other sweet things like raisins, prunes, dates, plums or other seasonally sweet foods, also flavor the savory dishes served during the New Year Meal. I often serve the sweet and savory Lamb with Honey, Almonds and Prunes, a Rosh Hashanah traditional dish served at Sephardic celebrations. Chicken baked with cinnamon and apples or a honey-coated baked chicken with preserved lemons, both Joan Nathan recipes, are stunning, savory sweet additions to the holiday table. My mother’s Sweet and Sour Brisket will be our newest holiday addition.

I pull out my collection of old cookbooks: home recipes gathered and shared by this community organization or that synagogue Sisterhood, recipes I turn to again and again when the Jewish holidays come around. I place them next to my new battery of cookbooks, Jayne Cohen, Claudia Roden and Joan Nathan, among others, and flip through each looking for something new to make to mark this special celebration, the beginning of the holiest days in the Jewish year. “Why make yet another honey cake?” I ask myself. “Or an apple cake, for that matter?” I try and make something new each year, out of the ordinary. And this year, although the idea of Honey Cake crossed my mind, I decided to bring it in another direction.

A baked custard. I found a recipe for Baked Custard in my favorite old community cookbook Abigail Serves, The Choicest Recipes Presented by Sisters of Abigail No. 3 United Order of True Sisters. Albany, New York, 1956. My Great Aunt Mae was chairman. This group did community service and raised money for such varied things as equipping the kitchen of the local YW and YMCA, isotope treatments for the indigent at Albany hospital, playing checkers with or writing letters for local veterans or organizing birthday parties for them. They set up and equipped a room for Cerebral Palsy patients at the hospital and raised money for a Warppler Machine at Albany’s Memorial Hospital.

The cookbook is a treasure, filled with fabulous and homey recipes from meat borscht and gefilte fish to spring lamb stew and lemon sole casserole with cream sauce. From Heavenly Chocolate Cupcakes to Lemon Chiffon Pie. I dug around and came across a recipe for Baked Custard with several variations. I chose Baked Honey Custard and knew I would serve them with Honey-Caramelized Apples.

For a round, sweet Happy New Year.

BAKED HONEY CUSTARD

3 large eggs
½ cup (125 ml) runny (liquid) honey
¼ tsp salt
3 cups (700 ml) milk
½ tsp vanilla extract
Nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Prepare 6 – 8 ramekins or oven-safe custard cups; place them in a baking pan that will hold water.

Place the 3 cups milk into a saucepan and gently (over low to medium heat) bring it just up to the boil. Immediately remove from the heat.

Whisk the 3 eggs in a medium to large bowl. Add the honey and salt and whisk briskly until well blended. Pour the scalded milk into the egg and honey mixture in a slow stream while whisking constantly. Once all of the milk has been blended in, stir in the vanilla.

Evenly divide between the custard cups which are already sitting on the baking pan – I find it easier to pour the liquid into a large measuring cup with a spout, which allows you to pour cleanly into the cups without making a mess. Dust the top of each custard with just a tiny pinch of nutmeg and place the baking pan in the preheated oven. Very carefully pour very hot water (tap water is fine) in the baking pan, around the custard cups, careful not to get any water in the custards.

Bake the custards for 40 – 50 minutes (the original recipe called for closer to 35 minutes for individual custard cups while mine baked closer to 50 minutes. Just check often.) The custards are done when set in the center – test by very gently touching the top of the custard or gently jiggling the pan. The will continue to firm up a bit when chilling.

When set, remove the pan from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes. Carefully lift each custard from the water bath and place on a cooling rack until cool enough to refrigerate. Cover each in plastic wrap and chill.

HONEY CARAMELIZED APPLES

I play the quantities by ear; just don’t leave the apples cooking unattended.

1 apple or more, depending upon whether you want to top the custards with more than a heaping tablespoon - I find one apple is good for about 4 custards
Butter or margarine
Water
Honey
Rum, optional
Cinnamon or nutmeg, optional
Whipped cream for serving, optional

Peel and core the apples and chop into small cubes. Heat a small amount of butter or margarine – about a teaspoon per apple – in a skillet and toss in the apple cubes. Cook, tossing often, until the apples are tender. Add small amount of water occasionally as the apple cooks; the water will steam off but will help “poach” the apples and keep them moist while not allowing them to brown.

Once the apples are fork tender, drizzle on honey, maybe ½ - 1 tablespoon per apple, depending upon the sweetness and the tanginess of the fruit. Continue to stir, adding more water as needed and desired. Add a tablespoon or 2 of rum to the fruit – if desired - as it is cooking, allowing the alcohol to burn away.

Once the apples are cooked as desired – taste and adjust the sweetness – scrape out of the skillet into a bowl to cool at least slightly before serving over the chilled Honey Custards. Top with a very light dusting of ground cinnamon or nutmeg and a bit of whipped cream.

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VANILLA CUSTARD BERRY TART

BLEU BLANC & ROUGE RED WHITE & BLUE

I have no consistency, except in politics;
and that probably arises from my indifference to the subject altogether.
- Lord Byron

The excitement mounts! An electric current zips through the apartment as the date approaches. We sit, night after night, glued to the television set, listening, observing, trading viewpoints and arguing opinions. The four of us gather every evening at 8 sharp for the news, following each candidate’s every word, every step. We compare the campaigns waging on both side of the Atlantic, the stream of candidates, from their policies to their faux pas, dissecting their political histories, analyzing their records, arguing their strengths, their weaknesses and whether or not we each consider their program, well, realistic.

To tell the honest truth, we also spend just as much time making fun of each candidate, each campaign move. As the evening news rolls to a close, the stream of back-to-back spots runs in glorious red white and blue, or rather bleu blanc rouge, and we love this part of the French presidential campaign. For one minute or two, this candidate or that one’s head looms large against the backdrop of searing red, crisp white or pale blue the color of sky, campaign motto splashed across the screen, La France Forte, Le Changement C’est Maintenant, Un Pays Uni Rien Ne Lui Resiste, Oui La France. Talking heads growling, barking, bellowing or mellow yet urgent, explaining as a teacher addressing a class of naughty children who refuse to follow the lesson. One son chuckles in self-satisfaction as he imitates this voice or that, following the words scrolling across the bottom of the screen, husband remarking on the insignificant, tiny mistakes made in editing while the younger son explains what is wrong with this policy or that. We sadly watch as the night’s series of campaign spots comes to an end, yet the discussion is far from over.

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously
and the politicians as a joke.
- Will Rogers

Our sons are well versed in politics. We raised them on television and radio news programs, often eating lunch or dinner in front of a panel of political pundits, never missing the evening infos, reading newspapers and debating, dissecting, explaining and, as they grew up, arguing, thrashing out, discoursing on everything French, American, Italian, European. We each have our own strong opinions and ideas of what works and what doesn’t, who is right and who is not and often lock horns. So this year, with presidential elections in both of our “home” countries, it is particularly exciting! The atmosphere is charged; we are geared up for a long year of exuberant, exhilarating, stimulating, often frustrating but definitely animated discussion.

And the fun has already begun with posters of our “favorite” candidates taped to each of our bedroom doors, faux campaign headquarters (although who put them there I have yet to learn), Our imitations are refined and in order, our clocks and watches synchronized so as not to miss even one well-regulated campaign announcement or candidate interview. Everything down to the second is timed and regulated in this beautifully over-regulated country, but how much better than the wild free-for-all in that vast cultural and political landscape (madhouse, some would argue) across the ocean. Words are measured, accusations tempered, and, as we are taught, everything is easier in moderation.


J - 2 (or as the French say it gee moins deux), two days until le premier tour, the first round of voting when the field will shrink from ten to two. Ah, yes, we will miss the odd candidates, and we may be sorely disappointed in the results. We may even be driven totally crazy by the madness of the final two weeks when things may get completely out of hand, wound up two notches or five, but we revel in everything political, no matter how insane.

And soon, France will have a new President and things will certainly return to the old humdrum, the same old same old, le retour à la normale, the status quo. And then the next one Over There will just be getting started.

From politics, it was an easy step to silence.
- Jane Austen

Bleu blanc rouge. Red white & blue: a little tribute to the fun and games that these mad, interminable, delirious, frenetic elections allow us but every four or five years. A luscious red, white and blue tart, worthy of our finest French pastry shop, worthy of our finest French election period, that brings together my little family of political animals as no election can. Or, well, at least not in quite the same spirit. A sweet pastry crust holds a voluptuously smooth, creamy, cool vanilla custard topped with a choice of berries: red raspberries, blue blueberries and wild blackberries. I prefer using frozen berries for tarts. Why? I find that frozen berries offer a much more intense flavor, sweeter, tarter, fruitier than fresh berries which gives wonderful results when baking. But use fresh berries when you can get full-flavored fruit all summer long.

Once baked and cooled, this tart offers sensational, winning, victorious results: tangy berries, sweet, creamy custard and just the right bite from the perfect crust. No analogies here, just a sublime dessert everyone will love. No matter their political bent or favorite candidate.


I will be adding this to my own April in Paris Monthly Mingle.


BAKED VANILLA CUSTARD BERRY TART

For the Pie Crust:
Or use your own favorite sweet pastry crust.

1 ¾ cups (250 g) flour
1/3 cup (40 g) powdered/icing sugar
8 Tbs (115 g) unsalted butter, slightly softened, cubed
1 large egg yolk
Scant ¼ cup (50 ml) milk, slightly more if needed

Sift or whisk together the flour and powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl. Drop in the cubes of butter and, using the tips of your fingers and thumb, rub the butter and flour together quickly until all of the butter is blended in and there are no more lumps; it should be the consistency of slightly damp sand. Add the egg yolk and the milk and, using a fork, blend vigorously until all of the flour/sugar/butter mixture is moistened and starts to pull together into a dough. If needed, add more milk a tablespoon at a time, blending vigorously after each addition, until the all of the dry ingredients are moistened.

Scrape the dough out onto a floured work surface and using the heel of one hand smear the dough inch by inch away from you in short, hard, quick movements; this will completely blend the butter in. Scrape up the smeared dough and, working very quickly, gently knead into a smooth, homogeneous ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes if the dough is too soft to roll out immediately.

Lightly grease with butter the sides and bottom of a 13 ½ x 4-inch (35 x 10-cm) rectangular baking tin, preferably with removable bottom.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and unwrap. Working on a floured surface and with the top of the dough kept lightly floured to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin, roll out the dough into a large rectangle and line the tin by gently lifting in and pressing down the dough. Roll the dough fairly thinly – you can see that mine is just a bit too thick. For a baking tin this size you will have dough left over. Trim the edges. Cover the lined tin with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. This can also be done ahead of time.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

Remove the baking tin from the refrigerator and discard the plastic wrap. Prick the pastry shell with a fork (not too hard or deep as you don’t want holes going all the way through the dough) and place a large piece of parchment paper over the shell and weigh down the parchment with pastry weights or dried beans, pushing the beans into the corners and up against the sides. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, carefully lift out the parchment paper and beans, pressing the bottom of the shell down with your fingertips if puffed up, and prepare the Custard Filling.

For the Vanilla Custard Cream Filling:

3 large egg yolks*
¼ cup + 2 Tbs (75 g) sugar
2 Tbs cornstarch or corn flour
1 cup (250 ml) milk (I used 2% low fat)
¾ cup (200 ml) heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1 – 2 Tbs slivered blanched almonds
Powdered/confectioner’s sugar for dusting

* Reserve the whites in a clean jar for Macarons!

Gently whisk the egg yolks with the sugar, cornstarch and the milk in a medium-sized saucepan until blended and smooth. Cook gently over very low heat, whisking constantly, for 5 minutes until thick like custard or pastry cream. Remove from the heat, quickly stir in the cream, the vanilla and the nutmeg; whisk until smooth. Transfer the cream to a bowl or glass/Pyrex measuring cup, cover with plastic wrap, pushing the plastic down to touch the surface, and allow to come to room temperature.

The Berries:

About 1 to 1 ½ cups fresh or frozen berries; I like a combination of blueberries, wild blackberries and raspberries. If using frozen, place the berries in a colander and run very, very quickly under running water to defrost then spread out on paper towels.

Just before baking the tart, place the berries (less any juice that has run off) in a small bowl and toss with 1/8 cup sugar (or slightly more to taste) and a dash of ground cinnamon.

Assemble and Bake the Vanilla Custard Berry Tart:


Once the pastry shell is partially prebaked and cooled and the vanilla custard is prepared and cooled, simply spoon the custard into the shell, spread to smooth and spoon the berries onto the custard. Bake in the 350°F (180°C) hot oven for about 40 to 45 minutes.


Remove from the oven to a cooling rack or wooden board and allow to cool to room temperature. Serve at room temperature or, better still, chilled, dusted with powdered sugar.

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