Tu Vuò Fà L'Americano

Welp. The holidays have come and gone, and then some. I got to go home for a ridiculously short vacation for Christmas, where I got an awesome present: a vintage-design Imperia pasta machine!

The downside: that baby weighs about twenty pounds and couldn't make the trip in my suitcase to Cayman after Christmas, so it's hanging out in Alabama for a little while.

The solution: frantically purchase ingredients and force feed your family copious amounts of pasta on your last night in town.

The result: behold! My first fancy-edited GoPro video. As if I don't look nerdy enough standing on chairs to photograph almost everything I bake or consume, I jerry-rigged a camera to my head with a backwards headlamp. No one was at all surprised. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading, 
A

Fruit Galettes

I do this funny thing when I shop.  If I see something I like, I don’t buy it.  I take a picture of it on my phone, and then I consider buying it for about 3 months.  (This is not the case with food.  If I see a food I like, it’s in the cart, through the check-out lane, and eaten on the drive home.)  If I still want it after 3 months, I go back and buy it. As cost-savvy as that may seem, I actually don’t advise that shopping method.  Seasons change, and things in retail disappear to mysterious outlets forever and ever. 

One instance of a successful 3-month postponed purchase is my Tartine cookbook, the aforementioned cookbook that I've been reading on the beach.  I bought it about a year ago when I was living in Atlanta, and proceeded to bake my first pastry, ever.  I adventurously chose Fruit Galettes. It took me almost 7 hours. My BFF roommate woke up to a note I’d deliriously written at 3 AM making some terrible Harry Potter joke about house elves. That was a little over a year ago.

I decided to give them another go.  We received a shipment of blue velvet apricots at work – designing for a grocery store has its perks. The general consensus was “Blue Velvet Apricot? AKA, a plum?” Yeah, sort of.  It looks like a plum, but it tastes almost like a salty apricot.  I’m not a fan of apricots because they aren’t very sweet, but the fact that these are slightly salty brings out the subtle sweetness and it is just delectable.  (slightly salty subtle sweetness, say that five times fast.)

The Tartine recipe yields a dozen single galettes, or 2 pie-sized galettes OR 1 pie-sized and 6 single. I chose the 6-to-1 combo.  I paired the blue velvet apricots with blueberries for the singles.  I was really bummed that I ran out of apricots for the last 2, and had only blueberries to fill them with, but this turned out not to be a terrible thing. The larger galette waited patiently in the freezer for the maximum of 3 weeks to be a delicious cinnamon apple galette with hazelnut crumble for July 4th when my favorites came to visit the islands :) Note: It didn't get photographed. 

As I said, the blueberry-and-more-blueberry galettes were a supposed let-down. Because of their boringess, I decided to jazz them up with a lemon vanilla cream on top and, oh my holy crap, it was lick-the-plate-clean good. In the end, I was sad to have only two.

Fruit Galettes by Elisabeth M. Prueitt &Chad Robertson in Tartine

For the dough

2 cups Unsalted butter, cubed, very cold

1 cup Water, very cold

1 1/2 tsp. Salt

2 1/3 cups All-Purpose Flour

2 2/3 cups Pastry Flour

Filling

About 6 cups of Fruit, cut-up depending on fruit/size, sauteed if needed

Granulated or brown sugar sprinkled to taste

Lemon juice if desired to add 

Egg Wash

2 Large Eggs Yolks

2 Tbsp. Heavy Cream

Granulated Sugar sprinkled

To make the dough, cut the butter into 1 inch cubes, and place them in the freezer. Measure the water, dissolve some salt into it, and put it in the freezer as well. Chill for about 10 minutes.

Measure all of the flour onto your work surface.  It is not necessary to mix your flours at this point, as they will become well mixed as the dough is being made.  Spread the flour out into a rectangle about 1/3” deep. Scatter the butter cubes over the flour, toss a little bit of the flour over the butter so that your rolling pin won’t stick, and then begin rolling.  When the butter begins to flatten into long, thin pieces, use a bench scraper to scoop up and fold the sides of the rectangle so that it is again the size that you started with. Repeat this rolling-scraping 3 or 4 times.

Make a well in the center of your dough.  Pour the water into the well and begin to cut it into the dough using the bench scraper – folding the sides into the center and “cutting” the water into the dough. Keep scraping and cutting until the dough is shaggy mass.  Shape the dough then into a rectangle about 10” x 14”. Lightly dust the top with flour, roll out the rectangle until it 50% bigger. Fold to reshape to original size, roll out to 50% larger and fold back to size again.  Do this 3-4 times until you have a smooth and cohesive dough.  You should have a neat rectangle measuring about 10”x14”.

Transfer the dough to a large baking sheet.  Cover with plastic wrap, and chill well for about an hour.

While the dough is chilling, prepare your fruit. Hull berries, pit peaches and cut, pit apricots and half or quarter, sauté apples or pears, etc.

Remove dough from refrigerator. Divide into 2 equal portions if making pie-sized galettes, or 12 equal portions if making individual galettes. To roll a circle from what is roughly a square, start with the dough positioned as a diamond in front of you, with the handles of the pin at two points of the square. Roll from the center towards each end, flattening the center, but not the two points that are nearest and farthest from you – leave those two points thick. Rotate and repeat with the thick points. You should have a square that has little humps in between the pointy corners.  Roll out the thicker areas, and you will begin to see a circle forming.  Keep rolling until the dough is a little more than 1/8” thick for large galettes (14” diameter), or a little thinner for individual galettes (6”-7” diameter). To transfer the large galettes to a baking sheet, fold into quarters to ensure that it will not break. Transfer individual circles carefully. Chill until firm, 10 minutes.

Fill the centers of the circles with fruit leaving a 2” diameter on large galettes, or a 1” diameter on individual galettes.  Taste the fruit for sweetness to determine how much sugar you should use to sweeten it. Sprinkle sugar, typically 2-4 tbsp. for large or 1-2 tsp. for small. You may also want to add a squeeze of lemon juice to some fruits if you feel it necessary for taste (blueberries, blackberries, apples, pears). Fold in the sides of the circles to partially cover the fruit, being sure not to leave any valleys for fruit juice to leak out. Chill until firm, 10 minutes.

While chilling, preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, and make the egg wash. To make the egg wash, whisk together the egg yolks and cream. Brush the egg wash over the pastry edges, and sprinkle them with granulated sugar.

You can bake the galettes immediately, hold them unwrapped for a couple of hours in the refrigerator, or you can skip the egg wash/sugar, wrap the galettes air-tight, and freeze them for up to 3 weeks. When ready to bake if previously frozen, remove from freezer, brush with egg wash, sprinkle with sugar and bake immediately.

Bake the galettes until the crust has visibly puffed and baked to a dark brown, and the juice from the fruit is bubbling inside. 45-60 minutes for large galettes, and 40-50 minutes for small galettes. Rotate the baking sheets 180 degrees and switch the baking sheets between racks at the midway point to ensure even browning. If you are baking them straight from the freezer, add 10 minutes to your baking time. If the pastry is browning too quickly, reduce the oven temp to 350 degrees, or place foil over the tops of the galettes. Remove from the oven and serve hot, warm, or room temp.

Thanks for reading, now go bake some galettes!

A

Jam Shortbread Cookies

The weather has been strange these days.  When I moved to the Caribbean, the South had only just become chilly.  My body seemed to accept the lack of seasons; the prolonged, never-ending summer.  
There's the saying "April showers bring May flowers," but that doesn't exist here. Instead it marches more to the beat of "Well, May rolls around and then there is rain and only rain forever and ever, the end." More specifically, rainy season (otherwise scarily known as Hurricane Season *shutters*), lasts from May to November, and with it comes sporadic showers and storms that come and go whenever they please. (Also, giant land crabs?! Land crabs that knock on your door in the middle of the night!? I digress: another story for another day.)

The sky has become a temperamental patchwork of clouds, but more often than not, it's overcast. These overcast skies are the "strange."  I see the overcast skies, I feel the familiar tropical heat, the usual humidity thick enough to cut with a butter knife, but deep inside, outside of my control, my mind is perceiving these skies as the seasonal change it's used to. A seasonal change I never realized how much I required. 
Overcast, dreary skies have always brought with them bright pea-coats and knit scarves and brown boots. Detailed Jack-o-Lanterns and too much candy. Smokey fire pits and an ice cold beer. And Momma's pie and cookies. And family and Christmas trees. But it's none of these things. This year's overcast skies are hot, and it's just me and my little apartment and unwanted land crab visitors. The weather has been strange, and I've been strange - in this weird funk that I just can't shake. Missing him, missing them, and craving cold-weather cookies and things. 

So, in a fairly successful attempt to "shake it," I made said cookies, and I shared them with some of my Cayman family. 
I decided that I was craving Jam Cookies. And then, as always, I could not decide on just one way to do it, resulting in 4 variations of jam cookies. Behold:

Note :: That top-left Strawberry Preserves variation was supposed to be salted caramel, but the caramel had other diabolical plans.

Old-Fashioned Jam Shortbread Cookies from The Cafe Sucre Farine
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 c. pure cane sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract (or 2 tsp. vanilla bean paste, or beans scraped from one vanilla bean - I used extract.)
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. all-purpose flour

• Preheat oven to 350F. Line two sheet pans with parchment paper. Set aside.
• Beat butter and sugar until soft and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add salt and vanilla extract and mix for a few seconds to combine. 
• Add flour and mix for 1-2 minutes, (stopping a few times to scrape the sides of the bowl) until large crumbs form. Pour mixture out onto a work surface and knead several times until a smooth ball forms. 
• Scoop small balls of dough, about 2 tablespoons each. Roll the ball in your palms to form smooth, round balls.  (If you find that you are having trouble rolling the dough, refrigerate for 10 minutes, then proceed.) Place dough balls on prepared cookie sheets, spacing 2 inches apart and pressing on each one just a bit with the palm of your hand to be about 1/2" thick. 
• The next step is really completely up to you and what you plan to do with your cookies. I had over 40 small cookies. I flattened them each with my palm, considered flattening more with the base of a cup, but decided that I liked more of a dome.  My plan was to have a dozen jam sandwiches (using 24 cookies), a dozen indented salted caramel cookies, and have the leftovers as regular iced shortbread cookies. I indented the necessary amount, and used a fork to make cute ruffled textures along all of the edges.
• Note: when you make an indentation, you can use your thumb or the back of a spoon. If your cookie cracks along the edges, which it will, just push the dough back together. Your indentation should, in theory, be 1/2" in diameter.
• Place sheet pans with prepared cookies in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes.  This will keep them from spreading out too much while baking.
• Bake for 15-18 minutes or until beginning to turn golden at bottom edges. If you've indented your cookies, when cookies come out of the oven, you can reinforce the indentations a bit, if needed. 
• Remove to a wire rack to cool slightly. 

As I said, I had planned to use salted caramel, but that didn't work out.  I've concluded that I need a candy thermometer, and pronto.  My caramel cooked just seconds too long, and hardened and turned into Werther's Originals; equally as yummy, but nonfunctional for what I required. This just meant I was going to have a lot more jam sandwiches. 

I chose two flavors, and to differentiate between the two, I cut holes in the tops of half of them.  This was no easy task, and I broke numerous cookies.  I suggest that you bake larger cookies if you're aiming to cut shapes in them, because small ones just barely cooperate. (To cut the holes, I used a tiiiny tiny-bladed knife to carve a square, and then I spun my knife in that square to drill it into a circle.  And then I ate the leftover shortbread crumble because of course I did.  

The carved sandwiches housed Dickinson's Pure Pacific Mountain Strawberry Preserves, and the solid sandwiches were filled with Bonne Maman Red Currant Jelly. I topped the cookies with a simple powdered sugar icing.

 And here, I leave you with this: the failed caramels of deliciousness.

Next up might be some FrootShoots!
Thanks for reading,
A

A Big Move to Island Life

Oh, hi!

It has been far too long of a while since my last post. Remember when I ended by saying that I had "a busy couple of weeks coming up," and I wasn't sure when you'd next hear from me? Well, I wasn't kidding. Here's a really quick, get-up-to-speed rundown of events since Aug. 22 of 2013. 

• 8 days later :: I flew from Atlanta to Milwaukee, and finally let this wonderful guy steal my heart :) Sappy, I know, sorry...ish. Commencement of long distance relationship!
• 5 days later than that :: I flew to Grand Cayman and interviewed for a design job. 
• 4 days later :: I had the job...and then onset anxiety and stress because holy doodoo I was moving out of the country any day now.
• Two weeks passed and my best friends got married and there was a whole lot of "EVERYONE IS GROWING UP AND DISAPPEARING" running through my head.

I moved my things from Atlanta back home to Birmingham while awaiting Cayman Islands Immigration clearance (an absolute nightmare), and then I waited. And waited. And waited some more. 

"Good things come to those who wait." All I got were migraines. 

Finally, I became a resident of the Cayman Islands on Nov. 15 and started my new job 3 days later, and it's been busy! I've had a lot of visitors and then was spoiled to get to spend almost 3 months in the Caribbean with my guy :) I've probably logged at least 48 hours of snorkel time, and my freckles have multiplied (my tan, not so much -____- ).

      

I've also been taking a lot more pictures, mostly on the subject of food. Food is a big thing here, especially on Sundays.  Sundays become a weird brunch-ghost-town. Nothing is open except restaurants, and almost every restaurant on-island has a Sunday Brunch event where you eat fancy little things and drink bottomless mimosas, and then you go to bars and keep drinking to ensure hatred of yourself on Monday morning.  I can't keep up with all that.  I eat the fancy little things, usually at a table for one, and I photograph every single cup and plate. 
It started as an Instagram restaurant-journal-of-sorts, but then I needed more. I started actually READING my cookbooks. Seriously, follow along with your imagination here: hot Caribbean sun in the sky, waves crashing, toes in the sand, cookbook in hand << that dork is me (and sitting next to me is some hunky nerd tinkering with a million GoPro gadgets).
So, I'm learning how to properly roll dough and fold ingredients and pair flavors, and SOMETIMES I'm not EVEN using a recipe. I'm also around food all day at work (this is a terrible, terrible thing). Every time I think about buying something, Lemon Shortbread Cookies for instance, I decide that I'd like to learn how to bake them instead. My new motto :: BAKE, COOK, AND EAT ALL THE THINGS! or something like that.

So anyway, what do I plan to do with these new-found interests? I don't know. I know that I'm pretty dang good at taking pictures of food, and that my food is delicious, if I may toot my own horn. I'm still sketching clocks and doodads, though materials for prototyping are too expensive when you live on a speck of dirt in the ocean, and I'm still doing Frootshoots. To hopefully not sound super cheesy, you could say I'm still Designing Amanda. I'll make an effort to post more often, and we'll just have to see where that takes me! If you'd like to follow along in real-time, follow me on Instragram @amandapandamania and you can accuse me of eating too much and constantly making you hungry :)
I've got three tropical Frootshoots locked and loaded, but we'll save those for the next post. 

Stay tuned!
A